Overshadowed
by Mistflyer1102
Summary: Sharon Carter just wants to be remembered for who she is, not for who her aunt was.  Captain America's return to the world of the living could change all that.
1. Monday

**I**

**Monday**

* * *

><p><em>He's looking for someone.<em>

That was one of the many whispered rumors that flew around the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier. Only three days had passed since S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Colonel Nick Fury discovered the identity of the newest member of Iron Man's recently created Avengers team. Fury hadn't been… pleased when he learned that _no one_ thought to tell him that the Avengers retrieved the _original_ Captain America from the ice of the North Atlantic.

No one knew if the Captain was for real or not. Fury had dragged the Captain, Iron Man, and the teen known as Rick Jones into his office almost the moment the three of them stepped onto the helicarrier, leaving agents to speculate the cause of the director's bad mood and the reason two Avengers and a kid were in trouble. Like any workplace where boredom was as rampant as the work-related problems, it had only taken a few hours for word to spread across the entire helicarrier. That Captain America, the _real deal_, was onboard. That the Super-Soldier program was going to restart since there was ready access to the source material. That the Captain had been in the ice for almost fifty years and by some miracle lived. That he'd been looking for Fury, who happened to be an old war buddy of his.

That he was looking for a particular girl from his World War Two days.

"Who? Who is he looking for?"

Sharon Carter, Agent 13 to her colleagues, looked up one of the field leaders shoved Agent 27 aside, the latter falling to the ground and crashing into Sharon's field leader, Agent 45, in the process. "I just told Sergeant Willis that I _don't know_, so please shut up," the first leader snapped as Agent 27 picked himself up off the floor.

"Hey, go easy on the kid. He can't help that he's curious," Willis, one of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s formidable drill sergeants, said mildly while the field leader rolled his eyes. "Hell, we're all curious. Why else would half of the workforce be hanging outside the director's office?"

Sharon looked down the hall, as did the field leader. All up and down the corridor leading to the director's office, agents were milling around and casually talking with neighbors as they waited for some kind of sound from behind the door. The office had become eerily quiet a little while earlier. Some had been waiting since the verbal volleys started, others, like Sharon, had just recently joined the 'party'.

It didn't help that half of the staff was on lunch break either.

Sharon glanced at her neighbor. "Do you think that they're done in there?" she asked in a low voice.

Valentina Allegra de Fontaine shook her head. "But I wouldn't worry about it. Fury is most likely just miffed that he let something this important slip through the cracks for this long. I wouldn't worry about Mr. Stark losing Iron Man either, Fury knows that what Iron Man does is too important to ignore, even if he won't say it aloud."

Sharon just nodded, wondering if Val would know the answer to Willis's question. "So, _do_ you know who the Captain is looking for?"

Val arched an eyebrow but glanced back at Fury's office. "I can't say if I know for sure, but I believe Fury might."

"Oh." Sharon leaned back in her seat and stared across the hall in silent contemplation. She had a feeling she knew the name of the girl that the Captain was looking for.

Fury's office door opened, startling the agents into silence. Sharon straightened in her seat but relaxed when she recognized Rick Jones. He carefully shut the door before turning around, stopping in his tracks when he saw the size of his expectant audience. "Erm, do you guys all want something?" he finally asked.

"Is that really the first Captain America in there?" an agent somewhere in the back asked.

"Uh, yeah… by the way, Colonel Fury said that there had better be no personnel, off-duty or otherwise, eavesdropping by the time he comes out," Rick said before he started trying to make his way through the suddenly-dissipating group of agents.

"Well, you heard him. No eavesdroppers," Val said, nudging Sharon. "Go."

"What about you?"

Val smiled. "I have some papers from Maria Hill for Fury. I've got to wait until he's done."

"Touché." Sharon stood up. "I guess I'll see you later then."

"Do tell me if you ever find out if he is looking for a girl or not. I am curious about that myself," Val added right before Sharon walked away.

Sharon turned the corner, and came to a stop. As it turned out, Rick hadn't gone far before a few persistent agents had cornered him. "Come on guys, Fury will have my head if I say something," Rick protested as Sharon walked toward the small group. "All I'm allowed to tell you is that he's the real deal. The Avengers _and_ the Fantastic Four confirmed it before coming to Fury. What more proof do you want?"

"Relax Jones, they just want to see the guy," Willis said as he pushed the others aside. "All right folks, it's 1300 hours right now and I'm sure that lunch break is over for at least _half_ of you. You can gawk at the new guy later on your own time."

"Who else is in there other than Fury, Iron Man, and Captain America?" Sharon asked as she stood with Willis, the other agents once again leaving but with purpose this time.

Rick waited until most of the other personnel were gone before he answered, "No one else, just those three. Apparently the Avengers were in the north to calm down the raging Sub-Mariner and stumbled across the Captain's ice block in the process. Cap had been flash-frozen after his disappearance in World War Two, and was in a state of suspended animation since then."

Willis grimaced. "Yikes, poor guy. He must have been extremely confused when he woke up."

Rick glowered at the older man. "No kidding, I was the one who found him not too long after that," he said, leaning back on a foot and crossing his arms. "He thought I was Bucky."

"Huh. Who was Bucky again? The name sounds familiar…" Willis began.

"Bucky was his partner from the war."

Rick and Willis both looked at Sharon, Willis looking slightly confused. "Or at least that's what I heard. He disappeared the same day the Captain did," she added, and Willis nodded sagely.

"Aha, now I remember. So now that Captain America has found Fury, who else is he looking for?" Willis asked, turning back to Rick.

"He's looking for his girl. Apparently, she was in the French Resistance but was an American, and they fought together often. Unfortunately, she disappeared at the end of the war, and Cap hasn't been able to locate her since he came back. He doesn't know what happened to her. Name was Agent Margaret Carter, but her nickname was 'Peggy'." Rick paused, checked to make sure it was still just the three of them, and then whispered, "Not even Fury knows where Carter went off to at the end of the war."

"That's sad," Willis remarked, and Sharon felt a slight twist in her gut.

"Hey guys, I'll catch you later, I have to get back to my post before my supervisor catches me," she said, waving before turning to leave.

"Catch you around, Thirteen," Willis said to her retreating back before turning back to Rick.

Sharon meanwhile forced her pounding heart to calm down as she walked away from the two men. Her father's efforts to protect a shell-shocked Peggy Carter had paid off. Stressed that someone would eventually try to take advantage of his sister's fragile condition, Harrison Carter managed to convince Peggy to live at the family home and recuperate. Once there, Peggy began to tell Sharon stories of her days as an undercover resistance fighter, spinning incredible tales of espionage missions and superheroes. Sharon's personal favorite was of Peggy's first meeting with Captain America in Nazi-occupied Paris. The story of the doomed romance's beginnings still captured Sharon's imagination even though it was almost four years since she had heard those stories.

Just reminiscing about her aunt encouraged the rest of Sharon's secret from Fury to force itself to the front of her mind, kept more out of need for protection than anything else. After the war's conclusion in 1945, Peggy had _seemed_ all right, seamlessly moving back into civilian life despite the fact that her memory was still patchy. It wasn't until 1953, when a communist spy pretending to be the Red Skull attacked the United Nations, that Captain America reappeared. Peggy had had a strong reaction to this, disappearing from home for a while. She returned a few years later, more confused than ever before. The post-traumatic stress disorder set in not too long after that, leaving Peggy in the care of one Doctor Faustus. After he was exposed as a criminal, Harrison had acted quickly to bring his sister back home, where he could care for her himself.

Sharon still remembered learning all of this from the hushed arguments between her parents, when Amanda Carter was terrified about letting Sharon sign on with S.H.I.E.L.D.

She could also still remember exactly where in the house the scrapbook was. The scrapbook was one of the few keys to Peggy's recovery; it removed the thoughts of war from Peggy's mind and eased her mental burden. Peggy told her first story to Sharon when Sharon was only six years old.

Sharon glanced back down the hall, checking to make sure that no one was following her. She was still somewhat wary of Nick Fury; Peggy brought him up frequently in conversation about the WWII days, and sometimes not in a favorable light. If Rick was to be believed, Fury hadn't tried to look for Peggy after the war. When she was recruited into S.H.I.E.L.D., Sharon had hoped that Fury didn't make the connection between her and Peggy.

Sharon knew what she was getting herself into when she decided to follow her aunt's footsteps. The thing she didn't tell her father was that she wanted to be as great as her aunt, but in her own way.

She wanted to be remembered and known for herself. Not because of who her aunt was.

So far it had been smooth sailing… until now that is.

The first problem was that Fury was _a lot_ older than Sharon initially guessed. When she saw him at the initiation ceremony, she'd guessed for him to be in his late forties, early fifties to be generous. But if he had known the original Captain America _and_ fought alongside him, then it put S.H.I.E.L.D.'s director around seventy years of age, give or take. She knew that since she really didn't know the director, she could be off with even that guess.

The second problem was the Captain himself. She'd taken advantage of the fact that no one in S.H.I.E.L.D. knew her real name (with a few exceptions of course), and subsequently her family 'connections'. If that truly was the original Captain America, then she was at risk of losing her anonymity, especially if Fury decided to run one of his extremely thorough background checks and traced her family as far back as the 1940s. Sharon had always assumed that her 'common' last name would be enough to slip under the radar.

She couldn't lose that.

Sharon released a soft sigh. Keeping an eye on the situation and not sticking out too much was probably the best she could do at the moment. That meant no more retelling stories to her teammates, like she would do when they were killing time. She could also call to warn her father that he was about to have some unexpected guests…

"Agent?"

Sharon jumped at the sudden male voice, and turned to the speaker. She almost jumped back and stumbled in surprise when she recognized Colonel Fury standing there, Captain America, Iron Man, and Rick Jones not too far behind him. "Sir!" she said, snapping into a salute and mentally cursing her voice for nearly squeaking.

"At ease." When Sharon forced her nervous muscles into parade rest, Fury leaned back on a foot. "What is your number designation?"

"Thirteen, sir."

His eye narrowed slightly, and Sharon arranged her face in what she hoped was a puzzled expression. She then mentally ordered her heart to stop pounding. "How long have you been working for S.H.I.E.L.D.?" Fury asked.

"Almost two years, sir."

"Who is your supervisor?"

"Agent Forty-five, sir." Sharon hoped that Agent 45 wasn't about to get into trouble.

Instead of looking angry like she expected, Fury instead looked thoughtful. "Where are you from, Agent Thirteen?" His voice still sounded calm.

Was this a test? "Richmond, Virginia, sir," she said, flicking a quick glance at the trio behind him. Iron Man was impossible to read because of his mask, Captain America had a slight frown, and Rick looked faintly annoyed.

"Interesting," Fury said, catching her attention. "So has anyone in your family ever served in the military before, U.S. or otherwise?"

She couldn't outright lie to her boss. "Not that I know of, sir," she said in what she thought was a steady tone. Then she realized her voice had wobbled a little at the end.

For a few nerve-wracking moments, she was sure that Fury was going to drag her by the ear to his office for further interrogation. But instead, he just nodded in acknowledgement. "Very well. Get back to your post. Dismissed."

"Yes sir!" Sharon said before she turned around and continued walking back to her post, trying very hard not to run.

Only when she felt that Fury wasn't breathing down her neck anymore did she give in and start running. Sharon felt fiercely protective of her aunt, and didn't want Peggy to be crushed if _this_ Captain turned out to be a fake. Neither Harrison nor Sharon had let Peggy ever know about the other two Captains, other than the original and the fifties one. Peggy was not restricted at the Carter home, not at all; she just chose to withdraw from the outside world in an unconscious effort to protect herself. Harrison said that Sharon and Amanda should just help Peggy with this.

He had done his part by pulling favors and erasing all mention or images of Peggy from any kind of database he could find or knew about. It had taken him almost twenty years to do this, and he was still searching for any others he might have missed.

She finally slowed and came to a rest around another corner. Pulling her phone out, she dialed her father and waited for him to pick up.

"_Hello?"_

"Dad? I've got something to tell you…"

This was shaping up to be an interesting week, and it was only Monday.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Got the idea for this based off of Mark Waid's _Captain America: Man Out of Time_. This is not connected to the other Peggy/Sharon story _Acceptance_. Captain America and all related media belong to Marvel. **


	2. Tuesday

**II**

**Tuesday**

* * *

><p>The next day brought new faces.<p>

Specifically, those of the Avengers.

The Avengers came in some sort of subtle takeover of the helicarrier, melding almost seamlessly with S.H.I.E.L.D. officers and scientists. Secrets were under careful guard on both sides. Sharon really couldn't tell who was the least pleased about that development, Iron Man or Director Fury. Anyone on the command staff directly below Fury took the director's side; they were the ones who got the full brunt of Fury's temper earlier that morning. The staff on the second tier down however seemingly decided as a unit to advocate for Iron Man with the sole intention of annoying the first tier.

But Sharon was nowhere near the fighting in the boardroom since she was not a member of any department in the command staff. Instead, she was sitting near the armory with her squad, listening to her teammate, 27, ramble about his near-accident in the mess hall at breakfast. Sergeant Willis was back, and although he claimed he was _not_ hiding from his superior officer, no one believed him. Especially since he'd confirmed his superior officer to be in a bad mood since Fury's temper explosion that morning. After Wilson had finished his story, he'd started bothering the team leader. 45 was a no-nonsense kind of man who was constantly at odds with the drill sergeant.

But Sharon found herself relaxing. This little gathering only meant that despite the upheavals in S.H.I.E.L.D. over the last twenty-four hours, Fury was forcing life to return back to normal. Her squad was scheduled for departure in twelve hours.

Which meant she would not have to encounter Captain America a second time.

"Oh hell, you have _got_ to be kidding me." 45's irritation was written all over his face as he studied the papers in front of him. Before Willis, Sharon, or anyone else for that matter, could ask him what was wrong, 45 swore again, using words that would leave Sharon's mother white-faced in shock. "Does Fury have _any idea_ how long it takes to train greenshirts on the field? Or make a new squad work? I can't believe I have to start _all over_ again…" 45 smacked himself in the head with the papers while Willis shook his head in feigned dismay.

"And you were doing so well with Twenty-seven too," Willis teased, eliciting a squeak from the agent in question. "Now all that hard work is going to go down the drain…"

"Actually, the unit transfer isn't for Twenty-seven."

There was a moment of silence. Sharon frowned, but felt her gut twist uncomfortably when 45 looked at her apologetically and handed her a slip of yellow paper. "Fury expects you in his main office at 1300 hours." 45 didn't appear regretful about the transfer slip; he seemed more resigned about it. She knew as well as he did that

it was in the nature of field agents to move between squads without a second thought so that each squad was best equipped to help S.H.I.E.L.D.

Sharon still felt like 45 was kicking her out of the house.

She closed her eyes briefly to collect her bearings. So much for life going back to 'normal', which incidentally included her staying with her squad and Fury never speaking to her again. "I…what did I do…sir…"

"I don'

"Thirteen? You've got thirty minutes to get there…and Fury's already in a mood. Antagonizing him further today isn't a great idea." Willis gently nudged Sharon, dragging her attention away from the slip. "Come on kiddo, I'll walk up there with you. Even _I _can't hide from my commander either."

"You're doing it right now," she pointed out.

He shrugged. "I've got a fixed routine. You don't."

It was hard to argue with that logic. Translated, Willis's words meant 'I'm higher ranked which means I can get away with more'.

They fell into silence as they both walked in the direction of Fury's office, Willis walking at a casual pace and Sharon wringing her hands as she drifted behind the drill sergeant. Willis glanced back occasionally as though to make sure she was still following him, giving her the feeling that she was an animal walking stupidly toward the slaughterhouse.

When they arrived to the entrance of Fury's office, Sharon had a moment of déjà vu, especially when Willis gestured for her to sit in the familiar bench before going into the office himself. Clasping her hands together to still them, she slumped in her seat, silently speculating as to why Fury would want to transfer her, and to where. Had he planned to transfer her all along and the timing just happened to coincide with Captain America's arrival, or did he do this on purpose because he had detected yesterday's lie after all?

Sharon closed her eyes, trying to figure out Fury's motives.

"Don't wear yourself out like that, especially before you even talk to the director." Willis sat down next to her. "Fury's motives are his own. You're safer not knowing what those are."

She opened her eyes and glanced at him to find that he was staring at the floor. "How did you even know what I was thinking?" she asked after a few moments of silence.

He hesitated, as though deciding whether to make a joke or not. Finally he said, "Fury's just ordered for your transfer without any obvious explanation. You've worked well within your current, er, _former_ unit and there's been no complaints about your work ethics so far. Yet here we are, sitting outside Fury's domain." He glanced at her. "I've sat out here too many times to count, either for myself or for someone else. Seeing Fury like this for the second or sixtieth time is nerve-wracking enough, but believe me when I say that it's downright terrifying to see him in this setting for the first ti – "

"Sergeant Willis, you're not helping."

"Right. Sorry, Agent Thirteen."

They both sat in silence again. Sharon could hear Fury's voice and tone through the office door, but once again, his words kept blending together into a steady murmur. It was hard for her to hear what he was saying. She could tell from his tone though that he was planning something. Something that involved the Avengers because Iron Man's synthesized voice kept interrupting Fury every now and then, enough to irritate Fury but not enough to give Fury an excuse to kick Iron Man out of his office.

"Hey Thirteen."

She glanced at Willis. "Hm?"

"Twenty-seven says you're a great storyteller. Want to tell one while we're waiting?"

She really should have seen that one coming. "I'm sorry, sergeant, but I'm too nervous to tell one right now." That and she'd sworn to herself to stay under the proverbial radar for now until the novelty of Captain America's return wore off and life returned to her version of normal.

"C'mon, why not? We've known each other how long and I'm just hearing now that you're a great storyteller? Sheesh." Willis shifted in his seat.

"I'm not a great storyteller, my friend was better at it than I was. I'm just repeating his words," Sharon replied, mindful that they were treading onto thin ice here. She silently thanked her lucky stars that she'd always referred to her aunt as 'Peggy', as though she was someone Sharon had never met in person. No one knew they were family, giving her a little more wiggle room if Fury decided to interrogate her again.

"Who was your friend?"

She shrugged. "Someone my father knew." Not completely a lie.

"Huh." Willis was quiet for a moment. "Twenty-seven told me this one story where Cap and Peggy were in occupied Paris, and he was meeting with an informant when Germans attacked. Cap failed to protect the informant and the guy got hurt, and Peggy was annoyed with Cap for what had happened."

Sharon snorted. "That's because Twenty-seven got some of the details wrong. Cap _was_ meeting with an informant in occupied Paris, but when the Germans attacked, he punched the informant in the jaw for supposed betrayal. Peggy was annoyed because the French Resistance had been relying on that informant for a while at that point, and now the informant couldn't talk anymore."

"Whoops! Poor guy, and Cap too. Hell hath no fury like a ticked woman." Willis nudged her with his elbow. "Trust me, I've seen it all while training you idiots."

Sharon laughed a little despite herself.

Willis kept smiling even after she calmed down. "See? The stories help you relax, not tense up."

She reluctantly nodded in agreement. She couldn't very well tell him that she was trying to hide, and he had been nothing but kind to her ever since she joined S.H.I.E.L.D. That was unusual considering the temperament of the other instructors. She closed her eyes and took a deep and steadying breath. "What story do you want to hear?" Her voice sounded small to even her own ears.

Willis placed a comforting hand on her shoulder for a few moments. "I'd like to hear about the last time Captain America and Peggy ever spoke to each other." Willis and Sharon made eye contact with each other. "If you know that one that is," he finally said.

Sharon hesitated, and then nodded. "I do know that one. It's short and sad though," she finally said. Aunt Peggy had only told her that story once before breaking down in tears. Since then, neither woman mentioned it ever again. Sharon looked up at the ceiling for a moment before glancing back. "Are you sure you want to hear that one?"

Willis nodded silently, his eyes never leaving hers.

Sharon sighed and looked down at her hands. Surely telling one more story couldn't hurt? She took a steadying breath and began.

"Captain America and Peggy Carter had a system whenever they had to part ways, one that would guarantee them meeting again. The idea was that they would select a location, and agreed to go there six months after the war ended. If they met again before the end of the war, they selected a new location for their rendezvous for the next time they parted." Sharon paused to catch her breath and memory; how long had it been since she last heard this story?

Too long. She hoped she still remembered everything. "It was in March of 1945. Peggy and Captain America were in Paris, and they had just finished a joint mission that would later prove to be a key factor in the liberation of Paris. He'd just received his transfer orders from command. Like they always did before parting ways, they agreed to meet at a new location, one that they would both remember the location of. They agreed to meet at the Statue of Liberty exactly six months after the war ended." Sharon faltered, but pressed on. "So when the Pacific Theater finally closed in September, Peggy waited six months before going to the Statue of Liberty. She waited there for thirteen days before the island groundskeeper told her that Captain America had died in April, only a month after they had separated."

Sharon stared at her hands in silence for a moment. The approaching lie was going to be the hardest. "They say that Peggy died not too long after that. She first became a ghost of her former self, and the reappearance of a Captain America in '53 was too much for her to handle. She…she died of a broken heart."

The words rang hollow in Sharon's ears. She felt guilty for making up an ending like that; the last three sentences had been complete lies. But Willis didn't know that, and Sharon hoped that it was too unrealistic of an ending.

_Sorry Sergeant Willis, but my aunt's welfare comes before your entertainment._

Willis sniffed slightly, but scowled when Sharon glanced at him. He straightened in his seat and then said, "Whoa…poor Cap." He stared mournfully at the closed office door before he asked, "Who told you that? You mentioned a friend earlier?"

_Anyone asks, you point him or her in _my _general direction. Don't give in easily and give them specific information._ Her father's words ran in circles in her head. "An old friend of Peggy's," she said carefully.

"What is his name?"

"Harrison…Harrison Redding," Sharon said, mindful to use her mother's maiden name for her father's last name. Just like she and her father practiced.

"Does he live in Richmond? Redding I mean."

_Where are you going with this?_ "Yep, in dead center of the city, he works for the state government." The words were coming too easily out of Sharon's mouth now. But she knew the drill; carefully lay the breadcrumb trail to her father's office.

"Huh."

Sharon turned to ask Willis why he wanted to know, but Fury's office door opened and his secretary stepped out. "Agent Thirteen, Sergeant Willis, Director Fury will see you now."

"Relax, I don't think you're in trouble," Willis muttered as the pair walked in, the secretary closing the doors behind them. This left Sharon and Willis in the office with Fury, Iron Man, Captain America, and two S.H.I.E.L.D. security officers. Iron Man didn't acknowledge the two arrivals; he was too busy pouring over the equipment with the two security officers in the corner of the office.

Both Sharon and Willis snapped salutes and moved to parade rest at Fury's signal. The director remained silent for a few minutes, skimming through a sheaf of documents while the security officers packed up their equipment. Sharon ignored them; she didn't dare look away from Fury. She didn't even flinch when the two officers walked past her, Iron Man accompanying them.

Fury finally set the documents down on his desk once the office doors closed with a _snap_. Sharon tried not to breathe too noticeably even though her heart was pounding. Fury studied her for a few moments before he finally said, "Sergeant Willis, thank you for escorting Agent Thirteen here. You are dismissed."

Willis saluted, gave Sharon a look of encouragement, and then promptly left the office.

Leaving her alone in the lion's den.

_Damn._

"Thirteen, please take a seat." Fury gestured to a nearby chair, which she took without question. She couldn't shake the feeling that she was sitting down at her own interrogation session. Fury lazily walked around his desk and sat down across from her while Captain America silently moved from his spot by the floor-length windows to stand just inside her peripheral vision. White clouds drifted by while Fury pulled out another unmarked folder, glanced at the contents, and shoved it back in his desk.

"Thirteen, you mentioned yesterday that you're from Richmond. How well do you remember the area?" Fury finally asked.

Sharon frowned slightly. "I…I still remember the area very well." How could she not? Even though she'd grown up and lived in the city outskirts, she'd explored Richmond extensively once she hit her late teens, especially when she finally got her driver's license.

"Good. Because I'm sending you there for a simple surveillance mission the day after tomorrow. The mission will only last twenty-four hours, after which you can return home." Fury picked up two more documents and skimmed over them. "However, your working partner will return to the helicarrier at that time. I do expect you back on Monday morning though at 0800 hours."

Somewhere in the back of her head she heard soft alarm bells. Since when did Fury allow freebie vacations, especially for a new field agent? Was this a test of her dedication to S.H.I.E.L.D., to turn down a tempting offer to go home? Not that she minded, she did love her work so far. It was just that with yesterday's episode and today's lies, she had been fighting the urge to go home to check on Aunt Peggy, just to see for herself that the older woman was alive. "Um, what will I – I mean 'we', be, uh, watching?"

"Nothing worrisome if everything goes according to plan. A Virginian official is under temporary surveillance because he is suspected to have ties with Hydra." Fury finally placed the two documents down. "I'll introduce you to your partner when you both leave in forty-eight hours. Hangars at 0800 hours Thursday morning, and don't be late." He looked at her and asked, "Any questions?"

Sharon stared at him for a moment. "What about the transfer?" she asked dumbly, holding up the transfer slip for emphasis.

Fury smirked. "Did you really think I was going to just transfer you without a little field test? You'll get a more detailed briefing when you leave, but the point of this mission is to see whether you can handle the same missions that you did with five other people, but by yourself or with one other person. Don't get your hopes up yet for success. Dismissed."

Sharon didn't reply. She just stood up, saluted, and then started walking toward the exit.

She made brief eye contact with Captain America. He held her gaze for a total of three seconds before looking away back at Fury, a small flash of pain flitting across his face.

Swallowing the unexpected rise in guilt as she walked out of the office and down the hall, she sternly reminded herself that there was always the possibility that the man behind her was not the original Captain America. Therefore she had no responsibility to help him find his girl. Especially since she could risk bringing further pain to a slowly recovering Peggy if she did tell him.

Then why was the guilt still clawing at her heart?

On one hand, she could approach him and say 'Oh, by the way, I forgot to tell you that I know where your girl is right now, and no, I'm not taking you to her because she doesn't deserve to be hurt further. Here's the second, and more selfish reason why: I don't want you to constantly compare me to her, especially since I have a feeling you're going to hang around here for a while.'

On the other hand, she could admit, "Yeah, I know where your girl is, you see, she's my aunt and I lied to Fury the other day. You know, when he asked if I had family who used to serve in the army'. But that still led to the problem of feeling as though she was under a microscope since Captain America was probably going to be a frequent visitor to the helicarrier. She did not need or want that pressure.

Sharon, for once, didn't care if Fury heard her scream of frustration all the way down the hall or not.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: It appears that the story decided to run away from me. And Marvel's inability to agree with continuity has tripped me up even further. The idea here is that this is still a part of Waid's storylines, but uses a few of Brubaker's interpretations of Peggy and Cap's relationship (maybe because they don't show very much of Peggy and Cap together in _Captain America: Man Out of Time)_. Finally, I've mapped this story to about nine chapters total, so we'll see where this goes :)**


	3. Wednesday

**III**

**Wednesday**

* * *

><p>"What's wrong?"<p>

Sharon looked up from her half-eaten dinner. "Hm?"

Agent 56 swallowed her latest mouthful before brushing black hair aside to scrutinize her friend better. The two of them had initially met during training after recruitment and became steadfast friends despite their different career paths. Sharon was pursing a career in the field while 56 was content to remain a member of the S.H.I.E.L.D. security staff. Although their respective paths kept them busy, the two of them tried to have dinner together at least three times together…it gave them a sense of a familiar routine.

Tonight just happened to be one of those nights.

"Okay Thirteen, you're making me worried. We've been sitting here for forty-five minutes and that hamburger is still sitting on your plate half-eaten." 56 leaned in slightly. "And to top it off, you've barely said a word about _anything_. Did you have a nasty breakup with a boyfriend I didn't know about or something like that?"

"Wait, what? No, I'm not dating anyone, never was…no, there wasn't anyone. I'm just thinking about tomorrow, that's all," Sharon said finally, setting her fork down and pushing her plate away.

56 sighed before pushing the plate back in front of Sharon. "You need to eat, especially if you're leaving for your mission tomorrow morning. You don't know when you'll have a decent meal at a table again," she said, refusing to budge when Sharon tried to push the plate back toward her.

"56, this is just a day-long surveillance mission a few hundred miles to the south. Not some week long mission in Europe." Sharon smiled and said, "I'm sure that my mission partner will have to eat too at some point, so if I do end up skipping breakfast, then I'll grab something at lunch."

"I don't know. I heard from my supervisor that Special Ops isn't kind when it comes to increasing training difficulty." 56 tilted her head at Sharon. "Who is your partner anyway?"

Sharon shrugged. "I don't know."

"Well, at least it isn't an Avenger. I thought they'd _never_ leave. Can't believe that Fury had to threaten Iron Man with physical harm if he didn't get his team off the helicarrier. I think he just wants to continue running his operations in peace without Avenger interference," 56 said, snatching some of Sharon's fries.

"Mmhmm." Sharon didn't bother looking up as she picked at the food on the side of her plate that was closest to her. It was better too that Captain America was gone also; she could now relax and at least _pretend_ that he hadn't come back and that her life could right itself back up and move on. But she didn't dare voice that to 56; like all of the other security staffers, was unusually perceptive and if 56 discovered that Captain America was the source of Sharon's unease, then she'd _never_ leave Sharon alone until she found out why.

"But, I'm kinda sad they're gone, they provided a decent source of entertainment from an otherwise boring routine." 56 fell quiet for a moment, before she said thoughtfully, "Although…I'm still not sure I buy Captain America's resurrection story. _No one_ can get flash frozen in the North Atlantic for fifty freaking years and expect to survive. That sounds like something my crazy great-uncle Edward would do. He's a total copycat."

"Then why did Fury tolerate him?"

"Because Fury is just weird like that. Maybe he knows to set aside his personal feelings about the matter because it's more important to have the icon again." 56 fell silent for a few more minutes, silently thinking. Before Sharon could speak again, 56 said, "But I can tell why you'd not want to tell those stories while Captain America was around. That would have been too awkward."

Sharon smiled, hoping it hid her grimace. "You saw that, huh?"

56 shrugged. "Kind of hard not to. I was on duty yesterday, and you were sitting outside Fury's office."

"Aha."

The two women were silent for another couple of minutes. 56 finally broke it again by pushing the plate toward Sharon again. "Just eat a little more. Make me happy and I promise I'll stop mothering you." 56 grinned suddenly, warning Sharon of the sudden change in topic. "Soooo…who are you going with? On your mission I mean? Or are you going alone?"

Sharon shrugged. "Fury said he'd introduce us tomorrow. Didn't you see that when I was talking to Fury?"

56 shook her head. "Nah, Fury's office is one of those few rooms in the helicarrier that doesn't have a security camera and isn't personal quarters. So _obviously_ I didn't get the gist of your meeting until you told me." 56 looked grumpy as though she wasn't used to being kept out of the loop and hated it so far.

_Wait a minute._

Sharon stared at her half-eaten dinner as she mulled over 56's words. "The bit about Captain America being in the ice for fifty years, I thought that was just a rumor. Did that really happen then? Where did you hear that from?"

56 snorted before leaning in conspiratorially. "Well, I can confirm for you that it's the truth that Captain America was frozen in the North Atlantic for five decades because my boss overheard him telling Fury," she said, grinning. "He was in the office at the time because he'd escorted the Captain, Iron Man, and Jones to the office from the docking bay."

Huh. Rick hadn't said anything about a security guard escort. But then again, it was so commonplace for visitors to have an armed escort that Rick hadn't thought twice about not mentioning it. Sharon shrugged the thought off before she leaned forward, still interested. "Any other rumors you'd like to put to rest?"

56 took a gulp of water before checking around as though to check and make sure there was no one else listening. Then she leaned forward and whispered, "Do you remember that Captain America had a girlfriend from the war that he was looking for?"

Sharon felt her gut twinge uncomfortably. "Yeah, what about it?"

56 sighed. "Fury managed to figure out yesterday that Margaret Carter died several years ago. He spent all day today pinpointing her last recorded address, and found the address in the records of that whacko Dr. Faustus. So anyway, Fury and Captain America are going to the house this Saturday so that they can get her resting place. Captain wants to pay his last respects," she said before taking some of Sharon's fries.

_Sergeant Willis. That talker._ And there really wasn't anything she could do in retaliation either. Instead, she asked, "How did he find out she was dead?" Either Wilson told Captain America without realizing whom he was talking to or Sharon had been set up.

56 answered her unspoken dilemma without realizing it. "Captain America heard it from Sergeant Willis…you can't blame either of them, Thirteen. I think Willis took pity on the poor man and just told him. Then the Captain told Fury. Easy as that."

"Oh…okay, you're right." Sharon stared at her plate, the anxiety twisting her guts into Herculean knots. There really was no chance of her finishing dinner now, not in the state she was in. She put on a nonchalant expression before standing up. "Well, I have to go and finish packing since I'm leaving tomorrow morning…"

"_Wait!_" 56 yelped, grabbing Sharon's hand and pulling her back down. "Where are you going?"

Sharon stared at Agent 56. "How's this, I'll tell you when I get back?" Sharon suggested as she stood back up and grabbed her tray. "Like I said, I still have things to do before tomorrow morning, and can't dawdle." She smiled. "Good night, Fifty-six."

56 smiled back. "Likewise, Thirteen."

Sharon's lips thinned as she left the mess hall, leaving her tray in the appropriate area. Everything was moving too fast for her. While yes, it was a good thing that the Avengers left the helicarrier, she knew she wasn't quite out of the woods yet. Her attempt to send Willis, and apparently Fury as well, on a long wild goose chase by dropping a name for them to use had failed spectacularly. If anything, it only encouraged the two men. She wished she knew what address they had…it would make her job easier.

Sharon mulled over her last conversation with her father as she walked down the hall, her fingers gently playing with her phone in her pocket. It had been two days ago, and Harrison had no doubt immediately started checking the strength of his security measures once he got off the phone with Sharon. She'd tried to make his job easier by not telling anymore Captain America stories, but even that failed when Willis pestered her.

_Fine, you win._

She finally pulled her phone out and dialed her home number. Yes, it was still around dinnertime for her family, but this information was important enough to warrant an interruption.

Besides, Harrison would answer no matter what. Regardless of the situation, he always answered the phone whenever he returned home from work.

"_Hello?"_

Even though her father couldn't see it, Sharon smiled at the sound of his voice. "Hey Dad, it's me, Sharon. How's everything going?"

"_Oh, you know, the usual. Peggy finished another scrapbook today and we are not even in 1944 yet."_ Harrison fell silent for a moment. _"Now, I'm guessing you either have information for me or this is a simple social call."_

"Neither. It's more of a warning." Sharon took a deep breath and said, "I did what you told me to do, if people asked about _her_ and where she lived." Lowering her voice, she added, "The thing is, I, uh, embellished a few details and said she was dead. Now I just heard that my boss, Director Fury, managed to locate her last known address. He and Captain America are planning to visit her 'last residence', this weekend, just locate her final resting place."

Harrison was quiet for a moment, and Sharon wondered if she was about to be scolded for the lie. To her surprise, Harrison finally swore. "_Damn Fury. I hate how he always forces my hand,_" Harrison growled. "_D.C. I can forgive but this is just crossing the line. What address does he have?"_

"The one he lifted from Dr. Faustus's records," Sharon said, glancing up and down the hall just in case.

"_Hm. I think he'll have her old New York residence then…she did stay there for a while before falling into Faustus's clutches. Fury won't have access to her medical records; I removed those from the system years ago." _Harrison finally stopped as his brain took over, giving Sharon a chance to lean against the hall corridor, trying to relax from standing with stiffened muscles.

"What do you want me to do?" she asked wearily.

"_Let's roll with this. Just keep doing whatever it is Fury wants you to do…speaking of which, what is that?"_

"I'm going on a surveillance mission with a partner in Richmond tomorrow morning. I don't know what I'll be watching or whom I'll be working with, but Friday morning I get to come home," she said, wistfully picturing her home, her parents, and her aunt. A nice little family tucked away in the Virginia countryside. She hadn't seen them since Christmas.

Harrison snorted. "_Careful. In case Fury is playing a game or something. I'll probably be out of town by then, but I'll see you when I come back._"

Sharon just had to ask at this point. "Dad…do you know Director Fury or something?"

"_Not really. My only run-in with Fury consisted of a glance as we walked past each other in the hall in Washington D.C. But other than that, I haven't had much face-to-face interaction with the man. Now has he screwed me over before? Yes. Have I forgiven him? Hell no. Sharon, just be careful on this mission please. And leave Peggy to me."_

"Of course, Dad. Good night."

"_Good night._"

_Click._

Just like that, Harrison hung up.

Sharon released a breath from between her teeth as she slipped the phone back into her pocket. Stay on task while her father dealt with Fury. Sharon could do that no problem…she hoped.

Starting with the surveillance mission tomorrow.

She started heading to her quarters, disappointed that she wouldn't have a chance to hunt down one of her old teammates, one she hadn't seen since yesterday. She was particularly interested in talking to him because Agent 27 had this unnatural tendency to _talk_ to anyone about anything. Which was why both Willis and 45 were sure that 27 would never amount to anything above field agent. Which again worked, because 27, as far as Sharon knew, had no plans to go beyond his current rank. In fact, if she closed her eyes and concentrated hard enough, she imagined she could hear 27 yapping away right around the corner…

_Wait a minute._

"Twenty-seven!" she snapped, rounding the corner quickly.

"_Acck!"_ 27 squealed while jumping and startling the person he'd been talking to. "Thirteen, I…" his voice trailed off when he guessed her mission and then the guilt painted itself across his face. "If this is about Willis and those stories…"

Sharon smiled. "Whatever gave you the impression that I wanted to talk to you about that?" she asked, getting an idea. "Well, I was going to talk to you about something related to our team, but now that you bring it up, what's so special about the stories?"

27 gulped. Granted, Sharon didn't tell him not to continue spreading those around, but she planned to fix that right now. "Well Thirteen, Captain Rogers here was just being nice about it and I couldn't say _no_!" 27 wailed as Sharon yanked on his uniform collar in order to make him turn around to face her. "I mean, it was just a story like you said and…"

"It's all right ma'am, I asked him to tell me," a man said, stepping forward as though to break up the fight. Sharon released 27 to step back and get a better look at the newcomer.

The rank insignia on his S.H.I.E.L.D. uniform was absent, but his uniform had the dull gold shoulder band that indicated his status as a member of the Special Operations unit. Sharon took a slight step away; Special Ops was a completely different department than hers and was even located in a separate part of the helicarrier. Sharon herself didn't know much about Special Ops only because she personally had no intentions with tangling with anyone from there yet.

"My apologies ma'am, I had asked Agent 27 about the stories. I had just gotten back when I heard that the Avengers had visited, and I asked 27 here to tell me about their visit. From there, we started talking about Captain America. 27 only said he'd heard these stories from someone else, he didn't actually tell any," the newcomer said, holding his hands out in a placating manner. Blue eyes met her suspicious ones.

Giving the man a quick once over, Sharon shook the feeling that she might have seen his face somewhere other than the helicarrier before. She asked, "Have you been with S.H.I.E.L.D. long?" They may have been in different departments but she just had a small gut feeling that something was slightly off about this person.

"Seven years." _Oops, her mistake_. The man smiled, unaware of Sharon's mental reprimands to herself. "Name is Steve Rogers," he offered, extending a hand.

"Agent Thirteen," she replied, accepting the extended hand. "Sorry for being all wound up like that, it's been a long day," she added, glancing apologetically at 27. "I'm sorry for scaring you like that."

"It's okay, I'm used to it," 27 chirped. He frowned when he realized that both Sharon and Rogers were staring at him, wearing stunned expressions. "What? Willis yells at me a lot more than either of you did just now."

"Hey 27? All I wanted to ask was if you could refrain from repeating the stories, I don't want them to get warped too much," Sharon said, offering him a sheepish smile.

"It's okay. I didn't think I was doing the stories justice anyway, that's why I didn't tell any of the stories to Captain America when he was here. Thirteen is a good storyteller, you can ask _her_ to tell you," 27 said while Sharon silently shook her head behind him, and Rogers nodded slightly in acknowledgement. "Well," 27 said, straightening, "I've got to go now. Forty-five says we're headed off to Dallas, Texas tomorrow. For what, I have absolutely no idea."

_You usually don't_. Instead of voicing her thoughts aloud, she said, "Good night then," and smiled in an attempt to reassure 27 that all was forgiven.

Rogers smiled and waved as 27 turned around and drifted down the hall in a sort of dreamy state. He waited until the two of them were sure that 27 was completely gone before he turned back to her.

"Again, I'm terribly sorry about the whole fuss. The last couple of days have been a bit stressful," she said, managing a faint smile.

Rogers nodded. "I guess I can sympathize. I just got home and Fury's already sending me off again."

_Home?_ "You consider the helicarrier to be your home?" The words were out of her mouth before she realized what she said and to whom. "I'm sorry, that was incredibly insensitive…"

Rogers laughed, startling her even though to her the laugh seemed a little forced. "It's all right. The last mission I was on lasted a little longer than I thought it would, but it still served as a reminder of why I didn't settle with a permanent home in the first place. It's easier… to have the helicarrier as my home…" his voice trialed off uncertainly.

"Hey," Sharon said, placing a hand on his shoulder. Despite his claim of having seven years' worth of experience of working for S.H.I.E.L.D., he seemed a little lost…or distracted. Or both. He was hard to read. When he turned back to face her, she said, "It will be all right."

He quirked a small smile, but it didn't mask a phantom pain in the back of his eyes. "Are you psychic now or something?" he asked with a slight tease in his tone.

"I prefer optimistic," Sharon replied, stifling a small laugh.

There were a few minutes of awkward silence between them. Sharon debated whether if she should tell him about the adventures (okay, it was more like hell) that the Avengers had given Fury or if she should ask Rogers about the mission he'd apparently just gotten back from. Then she remembered what 56 once told her; Special Ops agents _strongly_ preferred their privacy…and personal space.

And they disliked anyone who tried to interfere with either.

Choosing to drop the subjects altogether, she simply smiled again, patted him awkwardly on the shoulder and then said, "Well, it was nice talking to you. Good luck with everything."

_Dear God Sharon. Just get the hell out of there before you make yourself look worse in front of this guy._

Not that she actually cared about what he thought of her. No sir, she had better things to do at the moment, such as packing for tomorrow's mission and agonizing over the identity of her mystery partner.

It wasn't until six minutes later, when she was punching in her key code to get into her room that she suddenly remembered that 27 had called the other man '_Captain_ Rogers'. As in, the military rank way above hers.

So not only had he'd been a higher military rank, but he was in a 'higher' department than hers.

And she treated him as though he was just another teammate.

Although she tried to reassure herself that she would never see Steve Rogers ever again, she still didn't believe herself. It was going to be along night. She wasn't going to be in the right shape for the mission tomorrow morning.

Damn.

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><p><strong>AN: Mission time next chapter! :) Also, anonymous reviews have been enabled.**


	4. Thurs Morning

**IV**

**Thurs. Morning**

* * *

><p>The plane's joystick felt stiff in her gloved grip, but Sharon dared not complain aloud; it would be too unprofessional. Her mouth felt dry anyway, and she forced herself to stare straight ahead through the small plane's cockpit window with the same blank expression she'd carried for the last thirty minutes. Any movement otherwise might betray at how <em>terrified<em> she was at the moment. Not to mention embarrassed and horrified.

Her mission partner turned out to be none other than Captain Steve Rogers. She'd spotted him the moment she walked into the hangar that morning at the appointed hour, a small duffel bag slung over her shoulder. She'd had about a moment to acknowledge Captain Rogers's presence and react before Fury had materialized out of thin air from behind the small jet she was now flying. Fury, eager to start the briefing, didn't even have the decency to let her recover from the first shock of seeing Rogers before dropping the second bombshell of the morning on her: the surveillance target.

Then again, there was absolutely no way Fury could have known about the effect the target's identity had on her…

"What did Fury say was the connection between A.I.M. and Hydra again?" Rogers said, breaking the semi-awkward silence as he turned a page of the information packet that Fury had given them prior to their departure from the helicarrier.

Sharon was quiet for a moment as she thought over her answer, trying to remember what Fury had told them both as well as what she'd heard from her coworkers. "A.I.M. and Hydra have a sort of love-hate relationship. One day, Hydra is A.I.M.'s biggest customer, the next they're clawing out each other's throats." A smile twitched on her face when she remembered something else. "Sergeant Willis, my drill instructor, once said that all S.H.I.E.L.D. has to do sometimes is just sit back when A.I.M. and Hydra are fighting each other, and just clean up the mess that the fighters left behind." She shrugged and said, "From what I've heard from the other agents, it's usually Hydra that starts these spats."

She saw Rogers frown from out of the corner of her eye. "Why not stop the fight while it is in progress? Or at least move it out of the populated areas where no one can get hurt?" he asked, glancing at her.

"Um…that _is_ what we do," she said slowly. How long had Captain Rogers been gone on that previous mission of his? "I was just pointing out something that Sergeant Willis once said, that Hydra and A.I.M. tear each other apart more often than go up against S.H.I.E.L.D."

"Ah." Silence, and then he asked, "What is our ETA?"

Sharon glanced at the small clock on the dashboard, her stomach twisting at the reminder of their mission. "Five minutes." Her curt tone left no room for further discussion.

Or at least she thought it did. Captain Rogers apparently didn't think so. "We should start compiling a list of the target's last known locations, just so we know where to start looking for him once we arrive to the government center in Richmond," he said, too focused on the papers in front of him to notice Sharon's tightening grip on the plane's joystick

Sharon almost snorted aloud though; she could tell Rogers _exactly_ where the target worked and lived. Hell, she could easily hand over the target's cell phone number.

The target after all was none other than Harrison Carter.

According to Fury, Harrison Carter, a prominent and well-respected Virginian politician, was suspected to have ties to Hydra. Carter was reportedly seen with a wanted Hydra/A.I.M. operative numerous times in both New York City and Richmond, enough times to raise a significant red flag in Fury's mind. The two men never met for more than fifteen minutes, were always in public places, and were always efficient. They never arrived nor departed together; Carter stayed behind more often, in a more subdued and pensive mood than from before. The final straw however for S.H.I.E.L.D. had been when operatives tracking the Hydra agent found that Carter paid for a one-way trip to Berlin for the agent, and subsequently tried to cover his tracks. Fury was understandably concerned about how far Hydra's influence spread extended into the Virginia state government, and wanted only information of Carter's activities. Nothing more.

If Fury was trying to rattle her on purpose, then he couldn't have picked a better target.

Sharon would have liked to kid herself by saying that Fury couldn't have known, but Fury was turning out to be smarter than she ever anticipated him to be.

The descent into the S.H.I.E.L.D. airbase in Richmond was silent. Rogers seemed to sense her cranky mood and wisely kept his thoughts to himself. Sharon meanwhile focused on guiding the small aircraft down toward the long gray runway, still undecided over what to do. She didn't know whether she should help S.H.I.E.L.D. by remaining silent or help her father by calling him to warn him. This was her _father_ for goodness sake! It was hard in her mind to reconcile the man she'd trusted her entire life with the man that Fury had a profile on.

Then again, she didn't know what her father did outside the house.

Although, if she did call her father, Sharon thought while sliding a side-glance at Captain Rogers, she would probably get caught. Captain Rogers was more perceptive than she gave him credit for.

She was still sorely tempted to call. Just to see if Fury's accusations were true. But if her father were truly working with Hydra, then of course he'd deny it. Turning him into S.H.I.E.L.D. custody was the only way to go to determine for sure.

After carefully landing and guiding the small aircraft to its little hangar at the private airfield, she found the promised car waiting nearby. Fury had it equipped with the necessary equipment for the trip, and she couldn't wait to get started and figure this out once and for all. As they walked toward the vehicle, Sharon noticed that Rogers was looking around at his surroundings in an odd sort of wonder; he had only done this once before when he thought she wasn't looking, back in the helicarrier hangar.

"Question," Captain Rogers finally said as he slipped into the passenger seat. "What am I to call you during this mission?"

"Thirteen." She didn't need to look at him to sense his annoyance. "When you have an identity to protect, Captain, you'll understand."

A small, brief glance caught his faint smile as Sharon turned the key in the ignition.

"Seriously though, it will be odd if I call you 'Thirteen' out in public," he calmly pointed out.

She sighed. "If you absolutely have to, call me 'Anne'."

He didn't press the issue further.

Neither of them said anything as she drove into the heart of Richmond. They'd agreed on the flight over to bead the target as soon as possible, just to lower the chances of missing him. They could worry about their own accommodations later, when the target was tagged and being tracked.

"Does the briefing have anything on where Carter works?" she asked, not taking her eyes off the road.

"According to this week's schedule, Carter should be in a meeting with three others, including the state senator. They will be done in thirty minutes at ten, after which he will be in another meeting with the state governor for an hour and a half. He has one more appointment at eleven-thirty, and then at noon until two he'll be leaving the office for lunch. He has a very light afternoon after, heading home at five. If he plans to meet with anyone that we're interested in, that will either be his eleven-thirty appointment or happen in the afternoon after lunch," Rogers said. She heard papers shuffling and then Rogers added, "Carter lives about forty-five minutes from where he works. He and his wife live alone, his only daughter has already graduated college and is currently serving in the United States Army."

_Actually, she's sitting right next to you wondering if her and your boss is playing a game right now._ Sharon also couldn't believe that her father could be such a boring person; he'd been full of games after he got home from work. Aloud she asked, "So our best bet would be to strike while he's on his lunch break?"

"No. We don't know where he's going in those two hours. I'd prefer we found that out. My plan was that you would infiltrate the government center now, locate Carter, and shadow him until you get him bugged. I'll monitor your progress from here," he said, gesturing to the gray computer bag that Sharon hadn't even noticed until now. "Don't talk to anyone unless you can't avoid it without rousing suspicion."

Well, no point in trying to follow those orders. Harrison had brought her to his work so frequently that the staff would likely recognize her anyway.

Rogers straightened in his seat as they drew closer to the city center. "Since Mr. Carter apparently has ties to Hydra, he has to stay in contact with at least one other Hydra member. They like to network; the stronger the chain, the more likely that they will succeed." Rogers paused before saying, "It's worrying that Mr. Carter is high up in the government. We should try to figure out exactly how far into the government that Hydra's influence extends, and then identify other key players. The list of names will eventually go to Fury; if we don't get any today, then the helicarrier technicians will. That way he can send out strike teams to target those specific individuals instead of making a mess out of it. We're not properly equipped to deal with it right now," Rogers said, reaching past her into the back of the small van. He pursed his lips and then said "Pull over. When it's safe."

"Excuse me?" Sharon said, turning to scowl at him. She didn't care _where_ Rogers came from or what he did, but she wasn't going to put up with this. "I don't like backseat drivers."

Rogers frowned at her words. "What? I just told you to pull over…"

"Exactly. I don't like people telling me how to drive."

Rogers sighed. "I'm not telling you how to drive. I just said 'pull over'…"

"And I said that I don't like backseat drivers."

She felt a little nervous at his irritated sigh. "So you don't like…what was it again? 'Backseat driver'? How does that even work…?" his voice trailed off as though picturing something.

She dared not stare at him; they were still on the highway. "Backseat driver? You know, the person in the car who is _not_ behind the wheel telling the driver what to do?" she said, frowning slightly before dismissing it off; perhaps his instructor never told him about that…

"Ah. Right. _Please_ pull over so that you can get into the proper uniform so that you won't stick out too much."

Muttering to herself, Sharon got off on the next exit, and, after driving for a little while, found a shopping outlet. After pulling the key out of the ignition, she sat back in the driver's seat and looked back at Rogers expectantly. "All right, what does this 'uniform' entail?" she asked.

"I spoke to Armand back at the helicarrier about what he thought was appropriate for this situation, and spoke to several others," Rogers said calmly, but before Sharon could ask him why he thought S.H.I.E.L.D.'s army supplier of all people would know about something like this, Rogers continued saying, "Take this," he pressed a flat box in her hands, "And it should let you blend in well enough."

Sharon narrowed her eyes before opening the box and studying the contents. Then she slammed the lid shut. "No. Hell. No," she growled. "I _refuse_ to wear this."

"It's just an average secretarial uniform…"

"It is a _skirt_. I'm willing to bet that whomever you talked to besides Armand decided to get more of a kick out of this _and_ include heels." Sharon could just imagine that someone back at headquarters was no doubt laughing; low ranked agents and recruits, no matter the division they were in, were always the butt of numerous pranks and jokes from senior members. "I'm not wearing it. I'll get dress pants, but I'm not wearing any skirts or dresses."

"Actually, yes you are."

Sharon shot him a glare. "Didn't you just hear me? No I'm _not_."

Rogers met her gaze, blue eyes meeting blue. "Apparently you didn't hear _me_. Yes you are."

Sharon blew some loose strands of hair from her face. "Rogers, in case you have forgotten, this isn't the forties anymore. Women are no longer expected to wear skirts in the workforce."

A muscle twitched in his jaw. "Don't worry, Agent Thirteen. I haven't forgotten," he said coolly. He nodded toward the box. "Don't make me turn it into an order."

Sharon scowled, but left the car anyway and started walking to the nearest store to borrow a changing room or a bathroom to change. She also took the car keys to spite Captain Rogers.

She came back a few minutes later, her mood darker than before. Wearing a gray knee-length skirt, white blouse and gray jacket, Sharon felt as though she had stepped out of one her great-aunt's stories of her World War Two years. Her foul mood increased when she realized that Rogers had moved into the driver's seat in her absence, and didn't look as though he was going to move any time soon.

"Just so you know, we don't talk about this when we get back," Sharon growled as she slipped into the passenger seat.

"Why not?" Rogers glanced at her. "You look nice to me."

Sharon shifted uncomfortably under Rogers's scrutiny. "I don't know, it's not…me."

Rogers didn't say anything, just held his hand out for the keys. "Keys please, I'll be driving this time.

Sharon gritted her teeth, but didn't reply and surrendered the car keys anyway. Eyes narrowing, she remained quiet as Rogers pulled the car out of its parking spot and slipped back onto the highway. Not talking to him was her form of petty revenge; she couldn't think of anything else at the moment that wouldn't get her into trouble.

Although she did not admit it out loud, Sharon finally conceded that as far as disguises went, this ensemble would probably be her best one yet; her father and his coworkers might see her but they may not recognize her because they all knew quite well that she hated the frills that were stereotypically associated with girls, including skirts and dresses. So they wouldn't ever expect her to actually wear something like that.

Then again, if she could time this right, she wouldn't get caught, even if she were stealthily sneaking up behind her father to somehow attach a camera to him. Sharon snorted as a thought occurred to her; maybe she should just wait until he was free, pretend to visit him, hug him in greeting, and then stick the camera on then.

But of course she couldn't because for one, she'd probably startle her father badly (he wasn't expecting to see her) and two, she didn't know if the camera would be running or not, and she didn't need to blow _that_ aspect of her cover.

"All right, here we are," Rogers said as he carefully eased the car into the line of vehicles that were pulling up alongside the curb in front of the massive government center. Sharon watched in silence as the other cars paused long enough to either pick up or drop off important looking passengers. "Here, hold onto this," Rogers said, reclaiming her wandering attention. She accepted the small camera from him as he said, "It won't activate until you press this button here, and I suggest not doing that until right you put the camera on him; you don't want to turn it off by accident."

"Any recommended locations to put it?"

"Back of the right hand, it's his dominant hand," Rogers said, gesturing to the file that lay open between them. "Like I said earlier, the techs told me that the camera's linked with the computer so once it starts rolling, I'll know to come pick you up."

Sharon frowned at the camera. "What if the, ah, target doesn't meet with any Hydra while we're observing him?"

"The camera will keep transmitting even after we finish here. So the techs can keep observing after we leave here. Once we identify his contacts, we'll have enough evidence for his arrest." Rogers's jaw seemed clenched as he pulled up to the drop-off area. "Trust me when I say that he will make contact sooner or later; Hydra likes to keep their soldiers in line, especially with how terrible the organization has been doing lately."

Sharon nodded reluctantly, closed a fist around the camera, and then grabbed the folder of useless printed information. Stepping out of the cool car interior, she started walking up the stone steps of the government building. Wishing she'd brought sunglasses, she ignored the other people walking around her and then _finally _stepped into the cold atmosphere of the government center.

And, since the camera was _off_, she could be Sharon Carter once more and not Agent Thirteen.

"Hey Erwin!" she called out casually as she walked up to the security guard in question. He was sitting complacently at his station.

Erwin jumped, but grinned when he saw her. "Carter! Where the hell have you been? I missed you, short-stuff, he said, ruffling her hair playfully as she grinned. "Here to visit Dad?"

"Yeah, I wanted to surprise him because I happened to be in the area for a couple of job interviews," she said, gesturing to her outfit.

Erwin's face fell. "Army career didn't pan out?"

Sharon shook her head. "I didn't qualify, medical reasons," she explained, shrugging. She hoped Erwin wouldn't ask for an explanation; she would have to come up with something believable for her and her father when he asked (because there really was no way that this conversation _wouldn't _make it to her father eventually, he and Erwin _were_ friends after all).

Erwin didn't ask, to her relief. Instead, he shrugged and said, "Well, gotta play it safe in the work force, you know?" He leaned back in his chair. "Well, I'm not going to frisk you because I trust you, but I will ask you this: do you have any knives, firearms, or anything that could remotely classify as a weapon anywhere on your person?" he asked, his face sobering as his eyes met hers in a steady gaze.

"No, sir," Sharon answered honestly; she didn't have any weapons on her person. Just a little camera.

Erwin smiled, and waved her through. "Tell your father I said hello!" he called over his shoulder as Sharon walked away.

_Oh, don't worry, I will_, Sharon thought gloomily as she began the slow ascent to the fourth floor, where she knew her father's office was. She still…hadn't decided over whether to tell him or not about her own duplicity. Rogers's words clashed with her bias of her father, the one man she learned to love and trust unconditionally as a daughter would. She _did_ want to tell her father about the accusations, but at the same time, she wanted to prove herself to Fury. Besides, there was always the possibility that Fury was actually telling the truth, and she was just deluding herself in the hopes that her father really wasn't involved.

She wished that for once, she didn't know where her father's office was so she could kill some time looking for it. She checked her watch; it was only ten after eleven, and according to her father's schedule, he wasn't going to be back to his office until eleven-thirty. Maybe she could sneak downstairs to the food court or something for some breakfast or lunch or whatever the hell was being served at this time of the day…

"Sharon?"

Sharon jumped and whirled around, half-expecting to see Captain Rogers. Instead, to her pleasant surprise, her father stood there, looking pleased yet a little confused. "Dad!" she said, smiling broadly while stuffing the camera into her skirt pocket, she wasn't quite ready for that yet.

Harrison smiled as he held his hands out to accept her enthusiastic hug. "Hey there, sweetheart. What brings you here?"

She grimaced, opened her mouth to reply, panicked at the last minute, and then quickly changed her answer. "I'm hiding; there was a Hydra agent in downtown earlier this morning and I got separated from my mission partner when we were trying to evade the enemy agent," she explained, silently willing her heart to stop pounding so much from the slowly-dying adrenaline rush.

Harrison nodded sagely and gestured for her to walk with him. His blond hair now had a few silver streaks in it, and she leaned against him in comfort. "I…I thought you were going to be out of town today," she said, remembering their phone conversation from the night before. She was also mindful not to point out that he was out of his meetings early for the day, especially that had come from a schedule that she was technically supposed to have seen.

"Well," Harrison said, catching Sharon's attention, "I was _supposed_ to head up to New York today and meet someone for lunch, but he called late last night and pushed our appointment off to Monday, same time. Then a meeting I had today got shortened, which was when I found you in the hall." He sighed, but smiled when Sharon reached for his right hand and squeezed it reassuringly.

"Hey, Fury's letting me off for three days after today, so I can come home and hang out with you all," Sharon said, wary now that the camera was now out and running. As her father unlocked his office door, she carefully studied the back of his right hand, searching for the telltale sign that the camera was there. Then she could start making her excuses to leave.

There was nothing.

_Wait, where is the camera?_

Sharon silently reviewed the last few minutes in her heads as she sat down in the closest chair on her side of her father's desk. After thinking it over, she looked down at the palm of her left hand, praying that she didn't just create extra work for herself.

She did. The camera was sticking the center of her palm. Resisting the urge to palm her forehead in frustration, she half-listened to her father talk about home and family life. As ever, he was careful when talking about Peggy, calling her 'Maggie' instead as he usually did whenever they were outside the house. She managed to pry the camera off of her hand and looked back up just as Harrison sat back down in his chair across the desk from her. "So, not to kick you out or anything, but when is your mission partner expecting you back?" he asked conversationally, unaware that she'd been tuning him out in an effort to fix a mistake she'd made.

_This was her chance_. "Shoot, what time is it?" she asked, abruptly standing up again.

"Eleven-thirty." Harrison looked faintly amused.

"Damn…I have to be at our rendezvous point in thirty minutes." Sharon hesitated, and then reached over to squeeze her father's hand comfortingly. "Everything will be all right. I'll be able to help out once I get back."

Harrison smiled softly, blue eyes softening. "Very well. Be careful, and stay safe."

Sharon smiled once before turning on her heel and leaving.

The small camera, now firmly attached to the back of Harrison's hand, continued to record everything it saw and heard as it had been doing for the last two hours.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: The school year ended recently, so the last couple of weeks in April were full of me trying to pack up and move out. Next chapter though may come sooner than usual, mostly because I'm out of school now. Huge thanks to everyone who has read/reviewed/favorited/alerted this story; I'm glad that you're enjoying it so far.**


	5. Manhattan

**V**

**Manhattan**

* * *

><p>"Status reports please."<p>

Silence.

Fury waited five minutes, giving Sergeant Willis or Agent 56 a chance to speak up. The three were Fury's office in the helicarrier above Manhattan, and Fury was already in a mood because he'd had to cancel lunch with an important guest and move his appointment with said guest to Monday, same time. So he was now standing in front of the floor-length windows overlooking the city skyline, waiting for his two officers to speak up and bring him up to date on their individual assignments.

When neither person said anything, he turned around and said, "All right then, Sergeant Willis, thank you for volunteering to go first. Status report, please," he said, careful not to betray any of his current irritation at the general lack of communication here when the two soldiers _should_ know that that was the primary purpose of being here.

Sergeant Willis nodded, straightening noticeably. "Ah, yes Director. I, uh, have good news and bad news concerning the latest group of recruits," he said, shuffling through the small pile of paperwork that he had in his hands as he searched for a specific folder. "The good news is that the recruits passed every test we threw at them with flying colors," he said, placing the appropriate folder down on Fury's desk.

"And the bad news?" Fury prompted, looking directly at Willis, who swallowed.

"Um, my coworker, Branson, and I think that it might be beneficial to give the recruits a real field test in order to sift through the group for any potential problems in the team dynamics." Willis cleared his throat and said, "I happen to agree with him. The problem however is that there are no available missions on the queue."

"All right then." Fury turned to Agent 56. "How urgent is your issue?"

"Not… very? I just have the latest update from the mission of tailing the government Hydra spy," she said, fiddling with the folders in her hands without seeming to realize what she was doing.

Fury sighed, and then glanced at Willis. "You wait," he said before sitting back down in his chair and gesturing for his two visitors to sit as well; his desk video monitor, hidden by a small stack of books, let Fury know that there weren't any others in the hall waiting to see him. "Now, Agent 56, what has happened so far on that particular mission?"

Agent 56 swallowed before she spoke. "Ah, Captain Rogers and Agent Thirteen have made contact with the target. Mr. Carter has been tagged as arranged, but so far, nothing of interest has happened yet," she said. She paused to think for a minute, grimaced, and then added as an afterthought, "Agent Thirteen also blew the secret ID gig on camera, although the guys and I can't figure out if her name is 'Anne', 'Sharon', or 'Sharon-Ann'."

"Last one makes no sense. 'Mary-Ann' or some variation thereof I can see, but 'Sharon-Ann' seems too much of a mouthful, for me at least," Willis said, throwing his former student an odd look.

"Okay, who died and made _you _king of what can and can't be a girl's name?" 56 demanded, twisting in her seat to meet the drill sergeant's deepening scowl with one of her own.

"Knock it off, both of you," Fury said in a curt tone; he had no time for squabbling right now. "Fifty-six, am I correct in assuming that Mr. Carter has made no attempt to contact any of the several red flags from his files?"

56 shook her head. "With all due respect, sir, watching Carter is dreadfully boring, all he does is paperwork and meetings with Very Important People, and we've only been watching him for _two hours._ At least Captain Rogers and Thirteen provided _some _entertainment." She snuck a glance at Willis and said, "You missed seeing Thirteen in a skirt. Very chic, the guys in the costuming department did a fantastic job."

"Send me a screenshot if you can't send the tape itself," Willis muttered before ducking his head down in embarrassment at Fury's slight scowl.

"I'll see what I can do." 56 turned back to Fury and asked, "Permission to speak freely, sir."

Fury raised an eyebrow. "Of course."

She took a deep breath before speaking. "I personally believe that this mission is a complete and pointless waste of time and money. The horses are long gone, sir, and as far as I can tell, Mr. Carter isn't going to ever meet with anyone from Hydra or A.I.M. again. His last meeting was _three years ago_, when he smuggled that guy out of the country."

Willis frowned. "Didn't we smoke him out of his hidey-hole earlier this year because of that anonymous tip?"

"Yes, but he escaped right as we got there." Fury mulled over 56's words, and only managed to stop himself from vocally contradicting her; there were several reasons behind this mission that he wasn't quite ready to share, and not all of them dealt with Harrison Carter's questionable loyalty to his country. Then there was also the testing of Thirteen's loyalty and commitment to S.H.I.E.L.D.; if she sold them out to Carter by warning him, then Fury knew that it was better to keep her near the bottom of the ranks. Finally, he straightened and looked at Agent 56. "Overall, I appreciate your concerns, Agent Fifty-six, but you will continue to run those monitors until I say otherwise," he said, keeping a faint tone of warning in his voice.

"Of course, sir." Agent 56 deflated slightly in her seat and looked back down at her clasped hands.

"Harrison Carter met with a wanted Hydra operative that had past ties to A.I.M. These meetings happened at least seven times in the past ten years, and then, recently, for some unexplainable reason he helps the fugitive escape the country. Not only did he make our job harder when it came to tracking the fugitive, but his actions make me wonder if there are any other Hydra sympathizers or even operatives in high positions of the government in not just the United States but elsewhere in the world," Fury said, standing up again. He sighed, and then said, "Agent Fifty-six, I will email your supervisor an updated objective list."

"Yes, sir."

"And Sergeant? Keep your recruits on stand-by, I may have a suitable mission for them soon."

Sergeant Willis nodded. "Of course, sir."

"Good. You're both dismissed," Fury said, turning back around to face them both. He watched as the two of them stood to leave, and then remembered something else as they started to walk away. "And Sergeant? Please inform Teresa that I am not to be disturbed for anything short of a world-threatening emergency."

"Yes, sir."

Fury calmly watched the two soldiers leave, and it was until the door had closed after Willis with a sharp _snap_ that Fury let out the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. Agent 56 either forgot or didn't catch Agent Thirteen's familial connection to the target, which had also been given away in the tapes; he'd reviewed those with the hovering security supervisor in the security rooms ten minutes before his meeting with the two soldiers. Agent 56 was an anomaly in that while she was damn good at her job, she also talked a little too much for Fury's comfort. The only reason Fury hadn't dismissed her yet was because he noticed that she had a way of connecting with complete strangers so that they were put at ease.

That particular talent was also why Fury asked her to talk to Agent 13 last night at dinner. He asked her to try prying information out of 13, just so he could see exactly how much she knew compared with how much she told.

Agent 13. Her real name was Sharon Anne Carter, was twenty-five years old, a NYU graduate, and an only child. Fury leaned forward and pulled up her records on his computer and studied her photograph. Frowning, he searched for a photograph of Peggy, just for comparison purposes. He relaxed when he found a black-and-white WWII-era photo of Peggy, and pulled it up next to Sharon's colored ID photo. Yes, he could see the resemblance, but for him at least the question remained; were the two women actually related, or was it just a very convincing coincidence? Sometimes people looked similar to each other despite having no family relations with each other. It did happen, just not frequently.

Fury, despite having worked with Peggy Carter and the French Resistance frequently during World War Two, hadn't seen the family resemblance at first. He would never have considered the possibility if Captain America had never remarked on the similarity, if he hadn't said that there was a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent that looked unnervingly like Peggy.

The whole mess started last week.

Fury and his second-in-command, Maria Hill, had been debriefing two Special Ops operatives, and all four were still miffed that the Avengers had accidentally crashed an entire operation that had taken _months_ of preparation. Fury had been planning his lecture to Iron Man when one of the operatives mentioned that he did get to meet the great Captain America in person.

Had it been any other Avenger, Fury would not have cared at all. But Steve Rogers had been a close friend of his, and Fury had worked hard to protect his friend's name, privacy, and memory. Having endured three copycats already, Fury was absolutely ready to tear into and rip apart Iron Man and Copycat #4.

The two and Rick Jones had appeared in his office on Monday, as arranged. Iron Man _still_ got chewed out for not telling Fury about Captain America's return (after Copycat #4 had been verified as the real deal).

Rogers eventually did ask after Peggy Carter, the lovely American who had fought side-by-side with the French Resistance and the Howling Commandos on more than one occasion. Rick Jones helped explain about the different information channels they'd already used, and Rogers then mentioned he'd almost flagged down a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, momentarily thinking it was Peggy.

After his meeting with the three of them, Fury spotted the agent that Rogers almost flagged down: Agent 13. Fury briefly questioned her, but found that her answers easily matched her official records.

Fury dismissed the topic, promised Rogers that they would find Peggy, and then thought nothing of it anymore.

Until dinner that night.

On Monday nights, Fury would occasionally invite Sergeant Willis to eat with the command staff. Part of the reason for the invite was that he'd more than earned it with his years of dedicated service and the other part was that he didn't mind sharing any gossip he'd picked up from the lower ranks, giving Fury another source of information. This past Monday night, Fury had invited the whole group of Avengers as well as Willis to encourage peaceful coexistence between the two groups.

Willis unwittingly reopened the Peggy Carter case that night.

He and Captain America had been discussing the evolution of battle strategies when Willis brought up a specific incident from World War Two, an incident that also happened to _still_ be a top-secret mission where all the participants were supposed to take the memories and information to the grave with them. _This_ caught Fury's attention (he remembered that mission well), and he flat-out demanded to know where Willis had heard that.

The source turned out to be Agent 13.

Fury pulled Captain America aside after dinner, and offered to reopen the case with the new lead. Captain America accepted, and Fury sat down to work.

First order of business was pulling Agent 13's records, _all_ of them in existence, onto his computer so he could sift through them. While he waited for the files to finish downloading, he ran a database-wide search for 'Peggy Carter', hoping he could pinpoint her last recorded location.

The database came up empty.

Fury turned his attention back to Agent 13.

He'd managed to coax Willis into helping him with this next step. Willis met with Captain America and Fury early Tuesday morning, before the rest of the Avengers arrived, and Captain America gave him an altered story to feed Agent 13 as a simple test to determine if she actually knew something or was bluffing the whole time. Then, if she passed, Captain America gave Willis a prompt for a story that the Captain already knew: Peggy and Cap's final meeting.

Fury gave Willis his cover when the rest of the Avengers arrived. Instigating a fight with Iron Man, the two men inadvertently dragged both S.H.I.E.L.D. staff and Avengers into the fight as well, stressing everyone out enough to give Willis a legitimate excuse to escape, and eventually find Agent 45, 13's supervisor. Then, while harassing Agent 45, all Willis had to do was sneak the pink transfer slip into Agent 45's pile of paperwork.

After leading 13 to Fury's office, Willis told her to wait outside at the pre-arranged spot where the usual security camera was at the best angle for observation: the usual bench outside had been moved to that spot, and she didn't seem to notice the difference. When Willis came in, Fury told him to wait so they could make sure that Iron Man and the two security officers in the room were prepared with the video and audio recording equipment. Then, as an afterthought, Fury told Willis to probe for Peggy's final fate if possible. Fury told Willis that he'd send Teresa out once they were ready for Agent 13. Then Willis left, after which Fury engaged in easy banter with Iron Man in order to kill time.

Then, when the time came, Fury told Agent 13 the official reason for her visit; a surveillance mission of a Virginian official suspected to have ties with Hydra. Fury made the Hydra part up on the spot; he just wanted a closer look at this 'Harrison Redding' character.

Then he granted her leave after the mission's completion, just so he could wrap this up without her nearby in a position to interfere anymore.

Wednesday morning brought the security supervisor to Fury's office. The name 'Carter' had been cross-referenced with the name 'Peggy' and all variations thereof, and the teams had spent the night digging deep into all sorts of records. Their work paid off; there was a 90% match based on the information Captain America had provided plus whatever Fury knew. Two records had appeared. The first was a signed apartment lease in New York City to a Margaret Carter, and was terminated in 1953. There was a faint but present money trail that wound from New York City to London to Paris and then back to New York City. This trail ended at a now non-existent medical insurance company, _Blue Safety_. The acting physician had been Dr. Faustus.

Fury still remembered when S.H.I.E.L.D. had busted Faustus's operation wide open, but also knew that many patients slipped through the cracks that day as well and were never found. Since a Margaret Carter did not exist in S.H.I.E.L.D.'s lists of recovered patients, it was safe to assume that was a dead end.

So he looked back at the grainy photocopy of _Blue Safety_'s records, and noted that the insurance holder was a Virginian resident, one Harrison Carter.

Curious, Fury ran a search on Harrison Carter, and found that not only was he Agent 13's father, but he also possessed an even more similar appearance to Peggy, too close to be coincidence.

Peggy's trail had gone cold, but Harrison had only provided the next direction. Fury was even more intrigued when he found that Harrison was already on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s radar, and not in a good way. Harrison had been spotted over the years associating with numerous confirmed A.I.M. and Hydra agents, a few of which had been seen in the company of Dr. Faustus. Now Fury knew that Harrison had used his insurance company to get Peggy apparent medical care under the watchful eye of a confirmed madman. _Where was he going with that?_

He'd told Captain Rogers and Agent 13 that Harrison had only been meeting with one agent, just to give them less to worry about. S.H.I.E.L.D. had been picking off the rest anyway, slowly but surely. But so far, none of them had talked. The agent that Fury had implicated however was the one that was giving them the most difficulty, even with that anonymous caller who practically handed over the agent's address in Berlin. The caller had been untraceable; the disposable cell phone was found in a dumpster just down the street.

But, Fury mused as he leaned back in his chair, at first glance, 13's and Captain's mission _was_ pointless. But that was just because the security officers had a different set of objectives than Fury's. He wanted to know what the puzzle looked like, how Peggy, Harrison, and Hydra were all connected. He needed to know what happened to Peggy.

He owed her that much.

The two of them had had a sibling friendship and rivalry during World War Two, and the last Fury ever saw of her was at the memorial services at the war's end for their fallen brothers and friends. After that, they both had gone their separate ways and got involved with their own lives.

She had been hiding for almost fifty years. Probably would still be if Captain America hadn't miraculously returned to life from the North Atlantic.

Fury suppressed a groan. He still had to wait for the first set of tapes to re-watch and review before he could start drawing semi-solid conclusions.

"Director?"

Fury narrowed his good eye at his secretary, who looked as unfazed as ever. "Didn't I say that I wasn't to be disturbed unless it was a world-threatening emergency?" he asked slightly irritably.

Teresa nodded. She raised the phone and said, "He's in the middle of an operation right now, so he can't talk… I'll make sure to tell him… Good bye, sir." Then she promptly hung up the phone and said, "That was your rescheduled lunch appointment. Just wanted to make sure you were busy, but staying out of his business."

Fury snorted. "He's just sore about D.C." He looked up at Teresa and asked, "Was that all?"

She nodded, and then turned to leave, her job done.

"Oh, Teresa? You can actually do something for me."

Teresa paused in the doorway, waiting and watching him.

"Please tell Sergeant Willis and Sergeant Branson to report here immediately. I have a few questions for them regarding an issue that Willis brought to my attention earlier this afternoon," Fury said, leaning back in his seat. Teresa nodded in acknowledgement and then she left the office.

The situation that had been forming in his head in the last thirty minutes was ethically questionable. It was one thing to send in newly graduated recruits against a _real_ enemy, and it was another thing to do Fury's idea. _Someone_ had to know the full extent of the situation and how it was going to appear to both parties, thus knowing to be careful not to actually murder anyone. Not careful enough to pull punches, but not to kill anyone either.

_Knock, knock._

"Come in," he said, straightening his chair to face the door.

It was Agent 56. "Security supervisor wanted me to deliver these," she said, carefully placing four flat discs down on his desk. "The first four hours, as requested. One hour to a disc, the first two discs cover mostly the packaging and transport, and the next two have actual people in them. Discs two and three provide the most entertainment. In other words, this footage is when the camera first started rolling to about ten to fifteen minutes ago." 56 raised an eyebrow, and then asked, "Permission to speak freely, sir?"

Fury mulled her request over. The last time he'd granted her that, her rant had almost gone out of control. But on the other hand, he was always curious about what his subordinates had to say because for one, it was helpful to get a fresh perspective that might catch an angle that he might have otherwise missed. "Go for it," he finally said, mentally adding, '_Don't make me regret this.'_

56 nodded. "Mr. Carter has been under observation for more than two hours now. If he hasn't made a move yet, he's not going to make one in the next twenty-four hours. Even my supervisor agrees with me, and he rarely if ever agrees with me on _anything._"

Fury sighed, almost shaking his head in disappointment. It was always the young ones that were chomping on the bit expecting constant entertainment. Security was the worst; at least young soldiers had their desires tempered enough on the battlefield, but security rarely did anything like that and often turned to their monitors for something entertaining when the days started to blend. "Agent Fifty-six, your concerns are duly noted. Dismissed."

_And give it time,_ he mentally added as 56 saluted stiffly before promptly leaving the office, letting Sergeants Willis and Branson in on her way out.

Fury gestured for the two men to sit down. If Fury was going to get anywhere in the next couple days during his hunt for Peggy Carter, he was going to have to force someone's hand, preferably Harrison's. S.H.I.E.L.D. had enough evidence on Carter to obtain an arrest warrant, but interrogations were pricey and messy, and not to mention a little boring when there was an alternative available. Straightening in his chair, Fury quietly regarded the two men sitting on the other side of his desk.

Then: "I hear you're both having trouble finding a mission to test your soldiers?"

There was a moment of silence, and then Sergeant Branson finally spoke up. "Yes, that is correct, Director." Branson hesitated, and then added, "We, as in Willis and I, were hoping that the mission could be something we could easily observe from a distance."

"What exactly do you want to test the soldiers for?" Fury asked.

"Battle coordination, as well as teamwork under pressure. We also plan to identify the leaders in the group," Willis calmly replied. His voice was calm, but Fury still detected the extremely faint note of wariness in it. Fury didn't blame him for being cautious.

Fury placed his fingers together in thought. "Tell me, do you remember that one undercover mission a couple of years ago, when we were pursuing Dr. Zola and we had to get men into Hydra and gain his trust? So that we could lead him into a simple yet effective trap?" Fury asked, carefully watching their reactions.

Confusion, recognition, and realization crossed the sergeants' faces. "Sir… oh God, are we seriously doing _that_ again?" Branson asked, failing to keep the slight whine out of his voice.

"I have created an illusion, and in order to maintain that illusion, the players need to be nudged into their proper positions," Fury said curtly. "We won't be trapping them this time, just pushing them where they need to be. Your men have two hours to get prepared and then two hours to get into place before the fireworks start. Be forewarned: your opponents may be small in number, but they make up for it in strength and speed." He tilted his head at Branson, silently gauging his height. "You're playing the Big Bad this time," he said as he quickly typed up the mission specifics and included the target's time schedule for the day. Then he sent the mission briefings to Willis and Branson so that they could distribute it amongst their men. "A med team will be on stand-by."

"Good to know," Willis grumbled as he studied his new orders; Fury knew that the two sergeants were too used to running these sorts of crazy missions to actually complain about them.

"Remind me to call my substitute instructor before we leave, I'm _definitely _going to the ER for at least three weeks after this," Branson said, a slight smirk playing around his mouth. "Gotta practice my accent, I see. Wonderful…"

Fury rolled his eyes as Willis snorted, but still smiled slightly; Willis and Branson usually worked together extremely well, and Fury was always pleased by their mission results, so he was going to leave the mini-op to their hands without the constant supervision of a mission coordinator. "Get outta here, and try to keep in mind what I said about not killing anyone," he said as the two men stood up.

The two saluted, smirks (and a slightly furrowed brow of anxiety from Branson) still in place. Then they left the office, talking quietly between themselves about their first steps for this mission. Fury meanwhile stared at the four discs, wondering if he should watch them now to refresh his memory since he had them, or if he should check up on the other ongoing missions first.

Missions first. He stood up, and then calmly left his office, locking the door behind him.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Of course, just because we don't see him often, that doesn't mean Nick Fury isn't busy. ;)**

**It's also my _plan_ (nothing concrete yet) to perhaps finish this story before the end of summer, seeing as this is the halfway point. **


	6. Thurs Evening

**VI**

**Thurs. Evening**

* * *

><p>"Your best chance of getting authentic <em>anything<em> is really going to the country of origin. Don't believe most of what you see in advertisements, half the time they're just marketing gimmicks," Sharon finished, setting down the chopsticks on the hotel bedspread near the takeout bag.

"That makes sense," Rogers agreed, smiling slightly. It had taken Sharon all afternoon to get Rogers loosen up so that he appeared less of a soldier and more of a civilian. But in the end, Sharon decided, it had been worth the effort.

The two soldiers were sprawled out on their respective twin hotel beds. The computer displaying the news feed from Harrison Carter's camera was propped up on a desk chair between the two beds so that the two of them could watch and eat at the same time and not get caught constantly following Carter around. For the most part though, her father's day had been extremely boring, full of meetings and coffee get-togethers with other falsely smiling politicians.

The only remotely interesting thing to happen all day had been when someone called her father around two in the afternoon. He was relaxed up until that point, and then he grew tense while listening to the person on the other end of the phone. It had aggravated Sharon that she couldn't hear what the other person was saying, but she was mollified when Harrison agreed to meet the caller at ten p.m. in the abandoned car dealership on the outskirts of downtown. Then he hung up, and the monotony of his day resumed, boring Sharon to tears. What happened to the fun parent she thought she knew so well?

Captain Rogers was another person she couldn't figure out. After picking her up outside the capitol building earlier that day, he remained unusually tense. When three hours passed and Harrison had yet to do something incriminating, he'd finally started to relax. The mystery caller around two had actually interested Rogers instead of making him tense all over again. Sharon managed to coax him into relaxing a little more, but he was a little too excited at the prospect of catching a Hydra agent red-handed. He refused to leave the camera for the rest of the day and was planning to be there at the site for the rendezvous. He was hoping to gather enough physical and recorded evidence to ensure Harrison's arrest through S.H.I.E.L.D.

While Sharon also wanted to catch Harrison in the act, she still felt torn about arresting her own father. Something she knew she'd have to get over and soon.

"What time is it?" Rogers finally asked, looking up at her from his place on his bed.

"Almost nine-thirty." She didn't know how early he planned to get there, but suspected it would be soon. Especially if they were trying to get there before Hydra agents staked the property out themselves in order to ensure security.

He frowned thoughtfully. "How long does it take to get there from here?"

"In bad traffic, almost thirty minutes. In good traffic, twenty-five and in no traffic, fifteen."

Rogers nodded grimly as he stood up; he was all business and efficiency again. The soldier, not the civilian; it was a guise he was clearly the most comfortable with. "All right then. We'll go now then so we have time to get there and get into position before Harrison and his contact get there." He glanced down at her and said, "Five minutes to prepare and suit up. I'll meet you down by the car."

Sharon nodded.

Rogers ended up taking longer than five minutes. After he stepped out to ask the front desk receptionist something, Sharon reluctantly left her dinner and got dressed in the dark uniform and armor plating of the Special Operations department before heading down to the parking garage. Usually, there were no rank or S.H.I.E.L.D. insignias on the clothing just in case the operative was captured and interrogated. Enemies were usually unpredictable, and always reacted differently from each other when they found out that their prisoner was actually valuable because of a high rank within S.H.I.E.L.D. Fury was forever trying to find ways to ensure a safe return for all mission participants, and the lack of insignia was one such method.

She was just checking that the radio and tracer were in place when she spotted Rogers entering the parking garage and approaching her, wearing the same dark uniform of Special Ops. She stood up from leaning against the car when he finally came up to the driver's side. "I just talked to the receptionist about traffic tonight. She said it should be sparse or clear altogether since it's late," Rogers said as he pulled the car keys out and unlocked the car. "When we _do_ get to there, we'll have to be careful. Mr. Carter's contact might have the same idea as us and bring agents of his own to keep an eye out for any trouble, like us for example," he said as the two of them got into the car and started the engine.

Sharon stared at him. "How sure are you that it's A.I.M. or Hydra that's setting this meeting up with Mr. Carter?" she asked.

"Can you think of anyone else who could put Mr. Carter on edge like that for the rest of the day? He even called his wife to cancel dinner," Rogers said as he pulled out of the garage.

"When did that happen?"

"When you were ordering our dinner." Rogers glanced in the rearview mirror as though already anticipating trouble. "You also have to listen to the target's voice; his inflictions change whenever he's happy, stressed, sad, et cetera. The same goes for physical cues, although we were somewhat limited there because of the camera's small field of view."

"Okay, it's just that there are plenty of other legitimate groups that could have made him nervous, like the IRS," Sharon pointed out.

"The what?"

"The IRS. The Internal Revenue Service, the guys who collect your taxes and make sure that you pay on time."

Rogers stared at her incredulously for a few moments. "All right then, why would tax collectors want to meet Mr. Carter in an abandoned car dealership at ten at night?"

"Embezzlement? Under-the-table payments? I don't know for sure, but you do have to remember that Mr. Carter is a politician, and they don't always play fair," Sharon said, remembering a few scandal stories her father had brought home from the office.

Rogers still looked skeptical. Sharon sensed the opportunity to keep going and take advantage of it. "I mean, think about it. Carter has no contact with A.I.M or Hydra that we know of for a long time, and then on the one day of observation he gets a mysterious phone call. I'm not discounting A.I.M. or Hydra, I'm just saying not to immediately narrow it down to those two possibilities," Sharon said, leaning back in her seat.

"What if he has been in contact with Hydra, but was careful not to let Fury catch him? We can't be one hundred percent sure about the no contact bit," Rogers countered.

"_Fine_, you win this one. But just keep in mind what I said," she said, raising her hands in surrender.

Rogers let out an impatient sigh before re-focusing on the road ahead of him. Sharon was now absolutely sure that he'd had a previous encounter with at least Hydra before, so the desire to strike back wherever and whenever possible was strong. She didn't know if this attitude extended to A.I.M. – he didn't seem too concerned about them – since the two groups did have strong relations regardless whether they were fighting or not. She wasn't going to voice this other worry aloud either, but she was nervous that Rogers's desire for vengeance would interfere with the mission's original purpose of _surveillance_; as far as she knew, neither of them had heavy weaponry, just the one pistol for self-defense. She was having enough trouble not sabotaging the mission too much because of her father, but she didn't need to worry about her partner's mental stability on top of that.

Traffic wasn't terrible, so they were able to get to the car dealership in question without too much delay. Sharon had a strong feeling that it was in fact Hydra that was meeting her father tonight (not that she'd ever admit that aloud, not after that argument), but it would be extremely awkward all around if it were indeed a different kind of corruption going on as well.

Lucky Ben's car dealership had started in the early 1950s, trying to take advantage of the post war economic boom by selling cars of questionable quality at cheap prices. Ben's luck took a turn for the worse however when a Virginian politician, one who had purchased one of his cars, got into a collision and died in the resulting explosion from the faulty fuel tank. The dealership closed two months shy of its twentieth anniversary, and Ben mysteriously disappeared three months later, leaving all his cars behind. Since then, the dealership had fallen into a state of disrepair and turned into a junkyard for city residents and a hangout spot for Richmond's nightlife. A superstitious few even believed that the dealership was haunted by Ben himself as well as the others who worked (and supposedly died) there.

Sharon, when she was younger, used to be a member of the superstitious group. She snapped out of that when 'Ben's ghost' was caught the day after Halloween and revealed to be a troublemaker from her high school.

The _real_ factor of concern tonight though weren't any ghosts or thrill-seeking teenagers. The piles of junk, once low, had accumulated over the years into towering stacks, providing countless hiding places for enemy snipers and soldiers. Even if it was just an information exchange, Harrison was going to be at a serious disadvantage in a one-versus-many match.

Still, Sharon stayed close to Rogers's side as they entered the abandoned lot. The crescent moon hung overhead, providing little light while somehow casting long shadows across the grounds at the same time. Rogers was careful to stay close to the shadows, never once straying into the open space. Sharon checked her watch when he'd paused in the shadows for the tenth time, and whispered, "It's 2155 hours. Any sign of either party yet?"

Rogers was quiet for a few minutes. "Just because we don't see anyone doesn't mean they're not here," he whispered back. "I wouldn't be surprised if the caller is already here with his own men posted, keeping an eye out for threats like us. We may need to split up in order to locate the meeting spot between the caller and Mr. Carter. How big is this property?"

"Hard to tell, there's too much junk. Only Town Hall knows," she said. "The caller did say it would be _near_ the dealership, maybe we should run a perimeter first."

"Good idea, we'll walk in opposite directions so that-"

At first, Sharon didn't understand why Rogers cut himself off. But then she heard it herself: the soft rumbling of an approaching car engine. High caliber too: everything about the car was quiet as to not raise neighborly suspicion but loud enough to alert anyone listening for it. The car engine shut off after a few minutes, and then they both heard the car door open and close followed by the crunching of footsteps.

"Stay here. I'm going to find a high vantage point," Rogers whispered before blending into the shadows altogether.

Sharon stared at the spot where he'd been a few minutes ago. _How had he done that?_

"Hans?"

Sharon shrank farther into the shadows as she turned back to the scene to find her father standing out in the open, still wearing his business suit and a worn-out expression. He seemed eerily calm though, not stressed.

That perhaps was what frightened Sharon the most right now.

"Herr Carter. It has been quite some time, hasn't it?" a man said, stepping from the shadows a little ways from Sharon's own hiding spot. Sharon felt her heart freeze; two masked soldiers wearing the distinctive Hydra uniforms flanked the newcomer, who was dressed plainly. Harrison however did not react to the newcomer's arrival.

"Yes, Hans, it has been some time. I trust you are well?" Harrison asked in an even tone. "Now why did you call?"

Hans sighed. "Always to the point, so unlike other politicians I've dealt with. I am well as can be in the current circumstances. Which incidentally the reason I called." Hans paused before glaring at Harrison. "_S.H.I.E.L.D. _came knocking a while ago, ran me out of my home and country. I'm not happy, Herr Carter," he said coolly.

Harrison scowled. "I think you forget Hans, that I stand to lose too if S.H.I.E.L.D. caught you. I did nothing wrong. I paid you to do a job, and clearly you messed up enough to leave a trail for S.H.I.E.L.D. to follow."

"But why now? Not when Dr. Faustus's operation was cracked open? It's a little late to be pursuing _me_ now for that, isn't it?" Hans snapped as he started pacing.

"Don't blame me for something S.H.I.E.L.D. did, _I _didn't tell them where you lived," Harrison said, moving slightly so that Hans would never see his back as he paced. "You can blame Captain America for this mess if you're searching for someone to blame."

Sharon frowned; where was her father going with this? More specifically, what were they talking about that involved Faustus?

Hans snorted. "Captain America. A fake most likely, this will be what, the third? There is no reason to worry about him," he said, casually waving a hand in dismissal.

Harrison snorted softly. "Captain America was the one who reopened the investigation by asking after Agent Carter's whereabouts. You know that Fury will not stop until he has seen Agent Carter for himself, dead or alive. I paid you extremely well for your silence and to cover your tracks. Now, S.H.I.E.L.D. will be arriving on _my_ doorstep soon because last I heard, they have Agent Carter's latest address. Now I don't know what address Fury has, but I do know it will eventually come back to me." Harrison arched an eyebrow and said, "And if I get arrested, I'm taking you down with me."

Hans paused in his pacing. "How do you know what Fury has and doesn't have? Hydra has been trying for _years_ to get information from the director's office, so how did you do it?" he asked, looking interested for the first time that meeting.

"A S.H.I.E.L.D. insider, one who is close to the director," Harrison said calmly.

Sharon wondered if she'd still be able to look Rogers in the face after that admission.

"And here I thought all of the agents were blindly loyal to their leader. Tell me, what is the number of your little spy?" Hans said, his hands clasping behind his back.

Harrison's face became guarded. "Why?"

A thin smile spread across Hans's face. "Herr Carter, if you have any desire whatsoever of… continuing to survive, I suggest that sharing the name or number of your spy might be in your best interest," he said, casually approaching Harrison.

"No. Everything she has done was at my request, she would never go for it," Harrison said a little too quickly. "I will not-"

"A female? A family member perhaps?" Hans's voice had grown cold. "A daughter or niece? I do recall that you did have one daughter…"

"She doesn't live here anymore. We had a falling out a couple years ago, haven't spoken since. I don't know what happened to her," Harrison said, his confidence returning with the smooth lie.

Hans seemed to buy the story as well, because he backed off. "Very well," he said, tilting his head. "Now I suppose we should cover our tracks once more, what is it that you wish to do?"

Sharon frowned; Hans must have an ulterior motive if he was handing the reins of control over to someone else. That or he was on the dumb end of the Hydra IQ spectrum.

_BANG!_

Both Hans and Harrison jumped when the gunshot echoed across the junkyard. The two escorts muttered to each other before one reached for the hidden earpiece. Hans and Harrison meanwhile were looking around in worry and alarm. Then one of the escorts turned to Hans and said, "Sir, there is at least one enemy agent here."

Hans whirled to Harrison, who looked panicked. "You were going to _ambush_ me?" he demanded.

Harrison shook his head quickly, backing away as Hans advanced. "I swear I didn't bring anyone," he said, genuine worry creeping into his voice.

"You know what? I don't think I believe you. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if you were the one who really sold me out to S.H.I.E.L.D.," Hans growled, reaching into his jacket pocket for something that looked suspiciously like a gun.

"How stupid do you think I am?" Harrison snapped, unexpectedly standing his ground. "If you got arrested, then so would I! I have my family to think of!"

_CRASH!_

Sharon felt her heart leap into her throat when she heard the rapid report of gunfire somewhere above her; either Captain Rogers had found a pocket of hidden Hydra soldiers or vice versa. Sharon tensed, watching as the two escorts immediately drew closer to their master, who was looking around for the source of the noises. This drew his attention away from Harrison, who was starting to inch toward the junkyard exit.

_Go Dad, go._

Almost as if he had heard her, Harrison finally turned around and ran. Hans didn't seem to realize that Harrison was escaping until they all heard the roar of a car engine coming to life and the squealing of tires against the gravel. Hans turned around to stare in shock at the retreating car, his back open and exposed between his two suddenly jittery escorts.

_Now._

Sharon didn't even think. Wishing she'd brought her small pistol from the hotel room (_surveillance only!)_ she easily slipped past the two guard and more or less tackled Hans from behind.

The only reason the two went sprawling to the ground was because Sharon caught Hans off guard – she could easily feel his muscles through the thick padding of his clothes (and possible bulletproof vest), and knew he could have overpowered her. She rolled right off him right as the two escorts opened fire, and she hoped that they would accidentally hit their boss instead of her. She wasn't lucky however; the escorts weren't run-of-the-mill Hydra foot soldiers and it showed as bullets kept striking the ground close to her body, missing their boss altogether.

Sharon kept running as the escorts pursued her, and only stopped once she was behind a pile of destroyed cars. Trying to catch her breath, she looked down at the object she'd pulled out of Hans's jacket pocket when she tackled him, and then frowned. It looked like a small radio, and that was when she realized that Hans tried to summon reinforcements, not shoot her father.

"_Thirteen! Move!"_

Sharon didn't question the order; she moved right as the two Hydra escorts opened fire. Careful to stay out of range but not out of view, she lured the Hydra soldiers deeper into the junkyard maze. AS she ran, she could hear gunfire elsewhere, and knew that Rogers most likely caught up with the main party at this point. She tried looking for a weapon as she ran, but it was tricky, seeing that limited moonlight made it difficult to navigate much less run and search along the piles at the same time. The Hydra soldiers finally gave up trying to run and shoot, settling on just catching up. They were speaking English to each other as well, no accents. Sharon had initially guessed them to be of the same nationality as their boss. Her mistake then.

"Captain!" she shouted right as Rogers came right around the corner in an attempt to avoid a collision. Rogers thankfully heard her just in time and next thing she knew, his arm was around her waist and he was shoving her to the ground and out of the line of fire right as her Hydra pursuers came around the corner and realized what was going on.

Rogers opened fire a second before the other two did. One soldier was hit square in the chest, and the other had the sense to dodge back around the corner into another corridor for cover.

Keeping low to the ground, Sharon began to back away in order to safely stand up and rejoin Rogers. Right as she did manage to stand up again, voices and flashes of green and yellow caught her eye, and she spotted several Hydra through the cracks of the precariously stacked 'wall'. Instead of distracting Rogers with an announcement of their arrival, Sharon went to the opposite side of the corridor and ran back to the wobbly stack, slamming her body against it with as much force as she could. It didn't fall, but it did sway dangerously, catching the soldiers' attention in the process and slow them down as they looked up to stare. Scowling, Sharon went back to other side again, determined to knock it over this time.

"On your mark, ma'am," Rogers said, quietly joining her.

"One… two… _now,_" she whispered.

The two charged at the 'wall', not bothering to keep quiet this time. The Hydra soldiers looked down to eye-level and saw them right as Sharon and Rogers slammed into the junk; Sharon could see the facemasks looking at them between the pieces of metal and glass, and then the masks looked up at the top of the stack right as it came crashing down on them. The attack ended with a deafening _crash_ that echoed across the junkyard, finally scaring away the nocturnal animals and a few teenagers who had apparently chosen that night to come out as well.

Sharon was about to pull herself out of the wreckage when gunfire erupted overhead. Twisting her head, careful to stay down, Sharon barely saw Hans as he fired at them; he was at too much of an awkward angle to properly aim at the two of them because he wanted to protect himself, but Sharon wasn't complaining. Instead, she tried to assess the situation and figure out how to use the junkyard to her advantage.

"I'll draw his fire away, you sneak up on him from behind," Rogers ordered. "_Go!"_

She quickly rolled off to the side as Rogers snatched up a loose car door and held it up in front of him like an impromptu shield; the sight sparked something in Sharon's memory, but she didn't have the time to figure it out right now. Ducking down and careful to stay out of Hans's immediate line of sight, she crept back into the junkyard maze and followed the sound of gunfire to Hans's hiding place.

Rogers was the bigger threat here, as he intended, so Hans's back was to Sharon was when she finally mapped out a safe route to get him; it wouldn't help if she sprained her ankle or something stupid like that when sneaking up on him. She could see his profile; he was being careful to keep his front facing Rogers, and wasn't flinching even though Rogers was firing back at him. Remembering what Rogers said about a target's body language, Sharon took a moment to study Hans.

Hans's face was relaxed and calm, as though he'd been in a similar situation before and knew exactly what to do. His face also looked vaguely familiar, but again, Sharon couldn't put her finger down on it. Hans hadn't moved much from his original position from behind a large twisted sheet of metal, just from side-to-side since Rogers was pacing around him. Unless he or Rogers moved significantly closer to the other, neither he nor Rogers would able to hit anything vital. That wasn't going to happen soon either because of the near constant exchange of fire. Hans meanwhile was in a near-perfect firing stance as he took the time to aim and fire, a trick that first Sergeant Willis, then Sergeant Branson, had tried their damndest to drill into Sharon and her fellow recruits during those first few weeks at S.H.I.E.L.D. Hans must have had an excellent instructor somewhere along the way because he was in control, and was no doubt sure that he was safe where he was.

His guard was down.

Sharon moved quickly.

Sneaking up behind him, Sharon wrapped her arm around his neck into a chokehold, doing her hardest to apply pressure form behind. Startled, Hans struggled in her grasp, dropping the gun and staggering backwards. He slammed her into the junk behind her, and she gritted her teeth as pain shot up through her back. Her grip weakened slightly, and he drove an elbow into her gut. She fought against the natural reaction to let go, instead clinging tighter to his neck. He easily twisted his body around so that they were face-to-face, and he could wrap his own hands around her neck.

In that moment, he forgot that Rogers wasn't finished yet.

"_Shit!"_ Hans bellowed as bullet went straight into his back. He grunted in pain and let go of Sharon when the second bullet struck millimeters from the first, going straight into his spine. Then he finally collapsed right as Rogers showed up, the shield gone and the gun out.

The two S.H.I.E.L.D. soldiers looked down at the unmoving figure. Rogers finally knelt and placed two fingers at the pulse point underneath the jaw. "He's still alive. He'll most likely be paralyzed for the rest of his life, but he's lucky to be alive," Rogers said, standing up again and stepping back. "Maybe S.H.I.E.L.D. will be able to get something out of him once he wakes up."

"Where did you get the gun?" Sharon asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Borrowed it from a Hydra soldier who didn't need it anymore. I think they were out to capture, not kill. The weapons had rubber ammunition, sort of like what Sergeant Willis uses in his 'live fire' exercises," Rogers said as he opened the chamber to pull a few 'bullets' to show her.

"Is he the Hydra agent that Mr. Carter helped out of the country?" Sharon asked as Rogers tossed the bullets away before picking up Hans's jacket.

"Yes, if their conversation is anything to go by," Rogers replied, pulling out two small handguns and a hunting knife. Sharon failed to repress a shudder; what if one of those had ended up in her father's back? "S.H.I.E.L.D. will have a field day with him," he finally added, studying the weapons. "Go on ahead back to the hotel and figure out what Carter is doing now. I'll follow and make sure that there aren't leftover Hydra agents following you." When she hesitated, he added, "Don't worry about me. Just go on."

"One question before I do go. Did you fire the first shot?" she asked, looking at him carefully. Was it a trick of the light, or was there a sliver of a metallic blue underneath the tear in the black uniform?

"Yes and no. I was stalking a Hydra soldier who, for some reason, was videotaping the exchange for possible blackmail purposes. I attempted to sneak up behind him, but slipped on some junk giving away my position. He fired, I dodged, we fought, and then he went over the edge of the pile and I destroyed the tapes. That was when it all went to hell," Rogers replied, grimacing.

"Did we actually _kill_ anyone?"

"I don't think so. Rubber bullets aside, they were very well trained. Could have probably given some of the S.H.I.E.L.D. training sergeants a run for their money," Rogers replied, glancing at his watch. "Go on, I'll join you shortly. Keep an eye on Carter."

Sharon nodded, knowing better than to contradict an order. She smiled faintly and then said, "Good night then, sir."

"Ma'am," he replied almost reflexively.

Then, with one more glance to the unconscious Hans, she turned and left the junkyard altogether.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Sorry for boring you all with the wall of text that was Chapter 5. Hopefully the action in this one made up for it.**


	7. Friday

**VII**

**Friday**

* * *

><p>"It truly was an honor to work with you, Captain Rogers," Sharon said, smiling. Even though the smile wasn't real and he probably saw right through it, she thought it sufficiently masked her irritation with him. "Please do tell me if Hans, that Hydra contact, ever makes it out of his coma or not. I'm interested in what he has to say."<p>

"You and the interrogators both. Of course, I don't know if Medical will tell me anything either, the leader of the recovery team was extremely quiet about Hans's condition," Rogers said, readjusting his pack. The two were on the tarmac at the little Virginian airport where Sharon was going to borrow a car and Rogers was waiting for the small S.H.I.E.L.D. aircraft that would take him back to the helicarrier in Manhattan. They were both in generic S.H.I.E.L.D. uniforms. "Don't forget to submit your report by 2300 hours tonight, the Director will want to read that," he added, looking down at her.

_And he probably wants to compare mine to yours, just because he probably trusts you more than me and wants to catch me on a lie_, Sharon thought sullenly. She wondered how thick the irony would be if the S.H.I.E.L.D. medics and recovery team refused to tell Rogers anything, seeing as he refused to tell _her_ anything about how the prisoner transfer went (idiot had accidentally let that slip last night, something she hadn't realized was even going to happen). He didn't tell her much on that topic after.

"I'll submit my report after I get home and eat," she said, mindful to conceal the irritation in her voice. "Field operations go through the same routine too, you know."

"My apologies." He still sounded crisp, militaristic, and _not_ apologetic. "Just keep in mind that Director Fury pays closer attention to report inconsistencies when it comes Special Operations. One little mistake could cause the deaths of hundreds."

_Okay…_

"Is Mr. Carter's camera going to continue transmitting even though we're not going to be monitoring it anymore?" Sharon asked. If so, she had her work cut out for the evening.

Rogers nodded. "Last night apparently provided plenty of evidence against Mr. Carter, so S.H.I.E.L.D teams are going to continue monitoring him while they write up the warrants for his arrest," he said. "In the meantime, chances are good that we'll begin the hunt for the Hydra spy within S.H.I.E.L.D.'s ranks. I've already alerted Director Fury about it, and I plan to follow up on it once I get back to the helicarrier."

_Thanks Dad_. Sharon wished she could tell her father off for not only giving her position away at all, but to _Hydra_ of all groups. The thing holding her back was that she technically hadn't been in that junkyard last night because that would mean she would have to admit to spying on him. Harrison wasn't supposed to know that she was following him: he thought she was pursuing a Hydra agent…

Unless…

She never specified the name of the agent. She could always pretend that Hans was the Hydra agent she was supposedly chasing. That would give her the excuse she was looking for to be at the junkyard last night.

"Well, good luck with the hunt for the Hydra spy," she said, smiling again as she noticed two agents – agents 19 and 20, both pilots – approaching the two of them. "I think your ride is here," she added, nodding in the pilots' direction.

"Thanks." Rogers gave her a small yet genuine smile and said, "I enjoyed working with you, Anne. Is there a chance we could meet up again outside of a mission or anything else work-related?"

Sharon silently applauded herself for not letting her jaw drop open in surprise. Where had _that_ come from? "Oh, um, that sounds nice. I'd like that," she finally said, hoping to God that she wasn't blushing – she was more mature than _that_.

She was pretty sure that she wasn't blushing; Agent 20, whose life ambition was to create an awkward situation and embarrass others at every available opportunity, said nothing as he and Agent 19 approached. "Captain, we must leave now. The Director is expecting you in his office soon," 19 said while 20 waved a small greeting to Sharon, who waved back.

"Very well, ma'am." Rogers glanced at Sharon and nodded respectfully. "Agent Thirteen."

Sharon nodded back in a similar manner. "Captain Rogers, it has been a pleasure."

"Likewise."

Sharon took a couple steps back to allow them through, and simply watched as the trio walked back toward the waiting shuttle. She waited for a couple minutes more until the shuttle was taking off before she adjusted her pack and walked toward the garage to borrow a car for the weekend.

* * *

><p>It took her almost an hour to get home.<p>

Most of the delay came from her trying to find a place to change from her S.H.I.E.L.D. uniform into civilian clothes; her mother would have a major fit otherwise because she made it quite clear from Day One that Sharon would be disowned if she accidentally led a pissed super-villain home.

That was actually one of very few stipulations that she never argued with her mother about.

It was almost eleven in the morning when Sharon finally arrived home. Almost missing the hidden driveway, she finally pulled up to and parked in front of the massive garage. Climbing out, she made sure the car was still in one piece before walking up the cobblestone path to the front door. She paused long enough to pick up her mother's neglected sunglasses from the porch swing before shouldering the front door open; her mother left the front door unlocked out of habit, probably not the best one…

"Mom? Aunt Peggy? I'm home!" she shouted before dumping her pack near the hall closet. Kicking her sneakers off, she started making tracks for the kitchen down the front hall.

"Sharon!" Her mother's voice rang loud and clear throughout the house. "Don't you _dare_ go through the fridge, I'm still working on lunch!" Rapid footsteps came down the front staircase and down the hall to the kitchen, where Sharon was backing away from the fridge as though it was poisonous. "Sharon sweetie, your father said you were coming, but I didn't believe him up until now," Amanda said as she breezed into the kitchen and wrapped Sharon into a hug. "Especially with that jerk of a boss of yours…"

"Mom! It was Director Fury that allowed me to have this break," Sharon said, her voice muffled against her mother's dress.

Amanda sniffed in disdain as she pulled away. "Well, from the way your father and great-aunt go on about him when _someone_, namely your father, brings him up in conversation during dinner, Fury _sounds_ like a jerk. Forgive me for my apparent ignorance," she said, fluttering over to the counter and readjusting the dishtowels.

Sharon cringed. She _really_ had to get that camera off her father now; who knew what her parents said while that camera was rolling. Security was probably either cringing or getting a good laugh out of all this. "So where's Dad now?" she asked.

"Out and working late again. Worked _really_ late last night too, didn't get home until past eleven-thirty. Go easy on him when he gets home, the last couple days have been stressful for him," Amanda said, turning to point at her daughter in warning. "He still has to go to New York on Monday for a lunch meeting with an associate. It's a four hour drive there and back, what a waste of time, money, and gas." She paused, eyeing Sharon. "Maybe you two can go to New York together."

"Sorry Mom, I'm borrowing the car, so I have to return it before Monday when I go back," Sharon said apologetically.

Amanda stopped to stare at her daughter. "Then drive _that_ back to New York and take your father when you go," she said before reaching for the fridge.

"Mom, I can't take the car out of state! I have to return it to the airfield and if I don't, I'll get charged for its replacement," Sharon said, leaning against the counter.

"Honey, then just call your boss and tell him that you're driving your father, and will take the car to New York. Simple. Everyone goes home happy," Amanda countered. She frowned, and then asked, "I know you just got home, but have you seen my sunglasses around here?"

At this point, Sharon just backed off. Her mother didn't know (nor did she need to) that S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters were actually in a floating fortress hovering several thousand feet in the air above Manhattan, not safely on the ground below. Her mother had enough to worry about Sharon's job as it was, so Sharon didn't need to add to her mother's stress. "Here are your sunglasses," Sharon said, procuring the glasses from her jacket pocket. "You left them on the porch swing out front."

"Oh, thank you dear. I _really_ must keep better track of these things, or your father is going to think I'm scatterbrained," Amanda said, plucking the glasses from Sharon's hands.

_Might be a little too late for that._

"I'm going upstairs and drop my things off in my room. Where's Aunt Peggy?" Sharon asked, pausing in the doorway. She tried to squash the flutter of anxiety; what if her lie about Peggy's death was actually a reality and no one thought to tell her yet?

"Upstairs family room. And please actually unpack. Don't just dump everything on the floor," Amanda said over her shoulder before going back to her work on the counter.

Sharon just slipped out of the room after that.

To her pleasant surprise, the interior of the house hadn't changed much since her last visit. Numerous photographs and framed newspaper clippings lined the halls and the staircase walls as she headed up the stairs, a silent timeline that stretched as far as back as the 1930s, when the family's current matriarch had been a young girl.

Speaking of which…

"Aunt Peggy?" she asked, carefully shouldering the family room door open.

The woman in question was sitting next to the bay window overlooking the lawn and driveway below. Light blond hair had long turned to silver, and was wrapped in a neat bun. She was wearing a simple yet stylistic dress that seemed to blend in the shadows as Sharon slowly approached her, tempted to reach out and touch her just to confirm that she was indeed real and not a figment of Sharon's overactive imagination…

"Sharon?"

Sharon's face broke into a broad grin as she stepped into her great-aunt's embrace. "Aunt Peggy, it's so good to see you again," she whispered as Peggy squeezed her gently.

"It is good to see you sooner than we originally thought we would," Peggy replied, her voice soft yet strong at the same time. "I don't know what game Fury is playing, but for once I actually don't care," she added, brushing a few loose hair strands out of Sharon's face.

Sharon laughed lightly. "First Mom and Dad, and now you. So what if Fury lets me off for a couple days. I thought it was a test at first but apparently he was serious. I figured you guys would be happy that I was home," she said, settling down on the carpeted floor next to the window seat.

Peggy sighed. "We _are_ definitely happy to have you back, sweetie," she said. "But it's rare that Fury ever does anything like this just to be nice." She looked down at Sharon, who was starting to feel anxious as she thought this over. "In fact, I remember working with Fury during World War Two, and I've seen him use a similar dismissal in order to root enemy spies out of the United States military and the French Resistance. And Lord, did it ever work! It got to the point where my superior officer was worried that he'd start charging twenty dollars for every spy he found. The idea was that once the spy was on leave, he would lower his guard and thinking that he got away with it, and he would start making mistakes." She looked down at Sharon and said, "You didn't do anything to aggravate him recently, did you?"

_Yes._ "No ma'am," Sharon said respectfully.

Peggy smiled and squeezed Sharon's hand gently. "Then you have absolutely nothing to worry about," she said before turning back to look across the lawn. "What have you been up to in S.H.I.E.L.D. recently? Anything interesting?"

Sharon smiled sheepishly. "Sorry Aunt Peggy, most of it is classified."

Peggy waved her apology off. "Don't worry sweetie, I know how it is," she said. "I used to be an intelligence agent for the French, remember?" She winked at Sharon, who grinned.

"Well, I _can_ tell you that I saw the entire Avengers team a couple days ago," Sharon said after she thought about it for a few minutes. "They had crashed a special operation that Fury was running, and Fury and Iron Man had a row about it."

Peggy snorted. "Who won _that_ one?"

"Fury I think. He and Iron Man haven't spoken to each other since then," Sharon said, leaning her head against Peggy.

"Then it must have been bad. I'm surprised that Fury hasn't labeled the Avengers as vigilantes yet," Peggy mused.

_Well, that's because Captain America apparently diffused the fight before it got _that_ bad,_ Sharon thought with a slight twinge of guilt. Aloud, she said, "Maybe that's because he acknowledges that the Avengers are helpful in bringing in the _real_ bad guys."

"Or they remind him too much of his precious Howling Commandos and he's just trying to relive his glory days through them," Peggy said, rolling her eyes. "They were a very interesting bunch. The team was a jack-of-all-trades if you will. Saboteurs, soldiers, assassins, et cetera. Name it and they probably had a team member who did it. I still remember that they were favorites of the Allied Command. An extremely potent combination of forces would be when the Commandos and the Invaders teamed up together for all kinds of missions. It was exhilarating to watch them all in action," she said, a wistful expression crossing her face. She laughed softly and then said, "I think I have a few pages for them in one of the scrapbooks, I can't remember which…"

Sharon just smiled, stifling a frustrated sigh. Peggy didn't know that Fury was now looking for her, and both Sharon and Harrison were dangerously close to being arrested. Sharon wondered if perhaps she was reacting out selfishness, wanting to keep her relationship with Peggy such a secret that she wouldn't grant a celebrated war hero a simple wish.

Then again, that was another ballpark considering that she'd let her father drag her into a whole new mess of keeping Peggy's _existence_ a secret from her boss and Captain America.

Well, at least she was learning something out of all of this. Like how to keep a lower profile, improve her lying, and stay out of other people's tangled messes.

"Other than Fury and all the confidentiality, is everything at S.H.I.E.L.D. going well?" Peggy asked.

"Yes ma'am. No issues to report whatsoever," Sharon replied with a smile. "How have things been going on at home?"

Peggy laughed softly. "Well, your mother is thinking about repainting the house again, and this time, Harrison doesn't have the energy to fight against her. So Amanda might really go ahead with the project. Harrison has been doing fine until the beginning of this week, when he started to stress out over something. He won't talk about it with either Amanda or me," she said, frowning lightly in concern. "He's always been able to talk to me about things like this…"

"Maybe it's something that has to do with work so he can't talk about it yet," Sharon suggested, looking up at her great-aunt.

"Either way, it's got your mother all worked up in a tizzy. You know how she likes to stick her nose into other people's business, especially when she's not wanted," Peggy said dismissively. She met Sharon's gaze and said, "Why don't you get settled in, dear? Go unpack and relax, and we can talk some more at lunch."

"Are you sure?" Sharon asked, slowly getting to her feet.

"_Sharon! Did you just track mud all over my front hall?"_

"Okay then, lunch," Sharon said, jumping at Amanda's yell and grabbing her pack.

Peggy just laughed. "At lunch," she promised.

Sharon left the room, but tiptoed down the hall in a vain attempt to avoid Amanda's wrath. She finally located the her-old-converted-into-a-guest bedroom, and carefully shut the door to keep her location as discreet as possible from her mother. Then she happily dumped her pack onto the floor while taking in the changes in the room. At one point in her life, it had been a source of comfort, but now it reminded her of a hotel guestroom without the bathroom, television, and the extra double bed.

_Wonderful._

She had been in the process of searching for a clean pair of socks (she needed to wash her S.H.I.E.L.D. uniform so she could have something clean to wear when she went back), when her phone began to buzz angrily from its perch on the nightstand. Picking it up, she absently asked, "Hello?" as she continued digging through her pack.

"_Thirteen? It's me, Fifty-six."_

Sharon groaned. "Bad time, Fifty-six. Lunch is almost ready. Can this wait?"

"_No. The impossible happened: Sergeant Willis finally met his match!"_

"Sergeant Willis isn't a god. He isn't invulnerable. He just hasn't been on field missions since his 'retirement'. So this is a big deal because…?" Sharon asked.

"_Because this has never happened before!" _

"No, it's because he hasn't been on a field mission since we joined. Stop shouting and just get to the point already, I kind of have my hands full and lunch is almost ready," Sharon said, finally locating a sock.

An impatient huff came over the phone. "_Fury apparently sent him and Branson out the other day, and he met his match! I went down for morning calisthenics today, and the only instructors there were the assistants and the lower-ranked guys. It was the first time in ever that I went down and they weren't there. So I swung by Medical, and heard a couple interns talking. They said that Willis, Branson, and their team got ambushed. Willis and Branson took the brunt of the attacks."_

Sharon slowly released a breath as she processed this. Since working for S.H.I.E.L.D. could be extremely hazardous to one's mental and physical health, it was impressive if a soldier could make it to old age with everything still intact. Willis must have been extremely overwhelmed if he had been hospitalized. "Is he and Branson going to be all right?" she asked.

"_Willis is awake and pissed. Branson is still out cold from the anesthesia; he apparently had surgery when he got here. But they both should be fine."_

For a few moments, neither woman said anything. Sharon stared at the wall as she tried to process everything. Willis's attack most likely had been an isolated incident, but something was nagging at Sharon's memory. "Hey Fifty-six, let me call you back when it's not so close to lunchtime so we can talk more about this," Sharon said. She also needed a few moments to think things through and figure out what felt wrong about the current situation (aside from the obvious) and proceed from there.

That would involve talking to her father though, and he wasn't getting home until late tonight.

_Damn._

"_Sounds good!"_ 56 said, momentarily startling Sharon. "_Don't forget to call though, I've got more!"_

"I won't. And keep an ear out about Willis and Branson for me, please!"

"_No problem. Buh-bye."_

Sharon hung up then. Tossing the phone aside, she abandoned the hunt for her socks and instead chose to lie back on the bed, trying to get a better sense of the puzzle-piece mess she'd been given.

_Good luck_, she thought grimly to herself.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Agent 19 is Bobbi Morse. Later known as the Avenger Mockingbird.**

**Invaders: A WWII superhero team that consisted of Captain America, Bucky, (Original) Human Torch, Toro (Torch's companion) Prince Namor, Union Jack, and Spitfire.**


	8. Saturday

**VIII**

**Saturday**

* * *

><p>"Sharon! Sweetheart, where are you?"<p>

"Is she always like this when I'm not here? Or is it only when I am?" Sharon whispered to Peggy, who merely smiled. Sharon adjusted the black-and-white photograph before leaning away to give it a critical eye.

"I suppose it's only when you are here," Peggy said, brushing some bangs out of Sharon's face. "She doesn't get to see you often anymore after all."

"Then what could she want now?" Sharon asked, pretending to try keeping the whine out of her voice and failing

Peggy laughed at Sharon's best attempt of acting like a child again. "She's painting the house today, remember?" she prompted. She paused, and then added, "Or perhaps it is _you_ painting the house today. You are young after all, and can handle a little climbing around."

"Oh no." Sharon abruptly stood up and brushed paper shavings off her black capri. "I am _not _painting the house, I think it looks fine the way it is right now. And no, I am not just saying that because I don't want to paint. Nope, I am exercising my right to say no…"

"You may need to exercise your right to flee. As you know, Amanda doesn't usually take now for an answer," Peggy said mildly, smiling still.

"Did Dad ever approve of this? The painting job, I mean."

Peggy sighed, leaning back to rub her temples. "Amanda told him she was going to do it, but he's been too stressed recently to put up much of a fight. He didn't even get home until late last night again, wouldn't even tell me what it was about." She frowned. "I'm worried about him, he's closing himself off to everyone, even Amanda."

Sharon swallowed her guilt as she collected the scrapbooking supplies she'd been using. She could still fix this mess, but she dared not. She didn't want to risk losing her aunt or anonymity when they could squeeze by without it all going to hell. "Hey wasn't Mom outside in her garden earlier? What made her think of painting _now_?" she said, stopping in her tracks as the thought occurred to her.

"Well Amanda always did have a short attention span. I'm surprised she waited until after lunch to pull this, I'd thought she'd do it sooner," Peggy said dismissively. She frowned as she scanned the unfinished page in front of her before murmuring, "When were these taken…?"

As if summoned, Amanda appeared in the doorway of the family room at that moment. "Sharon, there you are. Can you please do me a favor and unlock the damn kitchen door? Your father took our guests to the kitchen and hasn't been out since and all of my house paint is still in there." She pursed her lips, thinking. Then she said, "While you're in there, could you also grab my car keys? Those are on the kitchen table."

Sharon stared at her mother. "What are you even doing this afternoon that involves the car and house paint?"

Amanda let out an impatient huff. "Just get them, please! And without the attitude?"

Grumbling to herself, Sharon gave Peggy an apologetic look and left the room, her mother trailing along behind her. "Do you have a hairpin? So I can get into the kitchen without completely destroying the door?" she asked as they walked down the long hallway and then down the stairs.

"I thought that was something you could only do in the movies," Amanda said, visibly skeptical.

"Do you want me to cut the door down instead?" Sharon asked, not bothering to hide the annoyance from her voice. "I know where the industrial saw is in the garage."

"Break one thing in this house, and you're paying for the repairs. All of it."

"Then how the hell do you expect me to unlock the door otherwise?" Sharon snapped as they walked closer to the kitchen.

"With the key! Duh!" Amanda looked quite proud of herself.

Sharon counted to five before she spoke again. "Do you have the key then? Because I don't."

"Sharon, if I had the key, I wouldn't ask you to open the damn door."

Forcing herself to ignore her mother, Sharon knelt to examine the keyhole and doorknob, and then turned to walk away from the door. "Mom, please move aside," she said, turning around at the end of the hall.

"Sharon Anne Carter, I swear to God, if you break any part of that door…"

"_Mom, _move aside. The only things that are going to be broken here are the door's lock and my shoulder," Sharon said mostly to herself before setting off at a jog that quickly turned into a sprint. This in turn ended when she slammed her shoulder against the doorknob.

The kitchen door predictably swung open.

Sharon was careful to adjust her balance so that she wasn't thrown to the floor upon entry so that she found herself facing her impatient mother while clutching tightly to both doorknobs.

"Amanda, I said I wanted-"

"Privacy, I know," Amanda snapped. "But I need to figure out what shade of paint to buy today," she said brusquely, brushing Sharon aside. Annoyed, Sharon turned to face her father.

Only to find not only Nick Fury sitting at the kitchen table with her father, but _Captain America _as well.

Oh damn, she was definitely going to get it now.

_Damn! _How could she have forgotten that Fury and Captain America were coming _today _because it was Peggy's last known address? She herself even told her father…

"Sharon, sweetie, please let me through, I have to figure out what kind of doorknob to buy while I'm out getting paint and that list of supplies that Maggie gave me earlier," Amanda said, pausing to scrutinize a little piece of paper she was holding. Sharon was pretty sure that her father also noted the use of Peggy's other nickname, and wondered if she wasn't the only whose gaze flickered to an impassive Fury. Shrugging and unaware of Sharon's nerves, Amanda said, "I'll call if I've got any questions."

"Pick up some Advil please while you're out, for my shoulder." Sharon said to her mother's retreating back, not bothering to make sure that her mother actually heard her. She glanced at the men, but made a point of keeping her eyes trained on her father. "Sorry for disturbing you, I'll go now," she said, before turning to leave.

"Actually, Sharon, please stay," Harrison said, gesturing to the empty chair between himself and Captain America. "We were just reminiscing about your great-aunt Peggy," he said as she walked over to the table after shutting the kitchen door again. "Sharon was only seven years old when my sister Maggie started telling her all these stories about Peggy." Harrison told Fury, who nodded.

"So, Miss Carter, what is it that you do?" Fury asked.

_The idea was that once the spy was on leave, he, or she for that matter, would lower his or her guard thinking that he or she got away with it. _

_It won't activate until you press this button here, and I suggest not doing that until right you put the camera on him; you don't want to turn it off by accident."_

Her original cover was still safe.

"I'm currently unemployed. Army career didn't pan out because of medical reason," she replied, confident that she hadn't been recorded using that excuse.

"Ah, that's too bad. That was one hell of an entrance, busting through the door like that." Fury said, leaning back in his seat.

"Thank you sir?" Sharon honestly didn't know if that was a compliment or not.

"As I was saying earlier, before my wife and daughter came in like that, the last few years were hard on Peggy. It's been many years since then, but I still recall the gradual decline of her health," Harrison said casually. "It was extremely hard to watch."

"So I heard," Fury replied casually. "If you don't mind me asking, what exactly happened during those last few years of her life?"

"She traveled extensively for several years before settling in New York, where she started to receive medical care for post traumatic stress disorder. Unfortunately, the acting physician didn't work out as well as we'd hoped, so I had her come down here to live in peace and comfort," Harrison said. Sharon resisted the urge to cringe; they hadn't exactly coordinated that well, did they? Her version of the story didn't include anything about a crazy physician. Was Fury going to catch them both out now?

Apparently not. "Who was the acting physician?" Fury asked casually, leaning back in his chair with a look of polite interest on his face.

"Doctor Fuller. It was more of that they had clashing personalities and I didn't want Peggy to be in such an environment, especially when she was not feeling very well. So I had her transferred to a local physician, who allowed her to stay home while he looked after her. She passed peacefully, I assure you."

Fury nodded, still smiling. Sharon just knew that he was probably rejoicing inside because the two stories didn't match. Why else would he be smiling like that over such a grim topic? "How long ago did this happen?" Fury asked.

Harrison's expression didn't change. "I am afraid that my memory doesn't go quite that back," he said, his face betraying nothing.

"That's too bad," Fury said just as calmly. He leaned back and said, "Do you know where Peggy Carter is buried now?"

"Honestly? I think only God knows where she is right now," Harrison replied mildly. Sharon noted that Captain America, while he remained silent, was now frowning as he scrutinized Harrison. Sharon quickly looked back at Fury right as the Captain turned glance at her.

Fury nodded, completely missing the Captain's actions. "Very well. Thank you for your time and patience, Mr. Carter," he said, standing up with Captain America. "I do apologize for the lack of notice. It was a pleasure having a chance to talk to you outside of your regular work hours."

"Yes. Please don't do that again. My office number is publically listed for purpose exactly like this," Harrison said with a politician's smile fixed on his face. "Please remember that for next time…"

"Which I assure you there will be." Fury said just as pleasantly, looking very much like a content cat.

"Sharon, please show our guests out," Harrison ordered, ignoring Fury in favor of looking expectantly at her.

"Of course."

Neither Fury nor Captain America said anything as they followed Sharon down the hall back to the entrance hall. Sharon held the front door open for them, stepping back to allow them through. While Fury just grunted before leaving, Captain America paused by the door.

"Ma'am?" he asked quietly.

_I think this is the first time you've ever spoken to me… at yet you sound familiar. _"Yes, Captain, sir?" Sharon replied innocently.

"If you do find anything else about Agent Carter, please inform me?" he asked, his blue eyes silently pleading with her.

She couldn't withstand the penetrating stare for too long. "I'll see what I can do," she said, her voice barely loud enough for him to hear. She didn't meet his steady gaze either.

"I appreciate your help, it means a lot to me," Captain America said quietly, blue finally eyes meeting hers. "Thank you."

_Damn it, Captain America, I already feel bad about this!_

Sharon kept a small yet fake smile on as Captain America got into the driver's side of the rental car, and she didn't move from the doorway until the car had pulled out of the driveway and disappeared from sight altogether. Then she took a step back into the house and shut the door, not bothering to make sure it didn't slam. She turned around to find her father standing there in the foyer, looking weary.

"Well, for all that hype beforehand, that was strangely anti- climatic," she admitted, leaning against the doorframe and crossing her arms.

"That's because you weren't there for the grilling earlier. You and Amanda came in at a very convenient moment. He was starting to ask questions that had risky answers," Harrison replied. He smiled and accepted Sharon's hug. "Think you're going to lose your job over this?"

Sharon smiled and stepped back, her hand brushing gently against the back of her father's right hand. "Nah, I don't think it's Fury's 'surprise' visit that'll cost me my job," she said, closing her left fist. She resisted the urge to smile even more when she felt the tiny camera against her skin of her palm. "I think it might be something else I _might _have done."

"Oh? And what might that be?" Harrison teased as he walked back toward the kitchen.

"Sorry, Dad. Confidential." Sharon replied in a sing – song voice.

When she was sure that her father was out of sight, she knelt and carefully placed the camera on the ground, a tiny speck of dust against the tiled floor. Then, without further ceremony, she stood up and stepped on it, grinding the intrusive annoyance into the floor underneath her heel, listening with satisfaction at the miniscule crunching sounds.

_Now _that_ just might get me fired. _

The mission was over. There was no more need for Fury to spy on the private Carter family life.

But while she was denying Fury any more answers to his questions, she wasn't going to allow her father to get away with not answering _her_ questions.

"Hey Dad? Can we please talk about something important?" she asked, drifting down the hall to the kitchen.

"Depends on what it is," Harrison replied as she walked in.

"Thursday, when we talked, I told you that we were trailing a Hydra agent. My partner and I that is," she hesitated, Harrison turning to face her now. "We… we followed him to a junkyard that night. Thursday night, he'd called to make a deal with someone and they agreed to meet at Lucky Ben's."

Harrison gave her a sad smile. "Hans didn't want make a deal that night, Sharon. He wanted to yell at me for _my _apparent carelessness, which allowed S.H.I.E.L.D. to track _him _down," he replied, heaving a sigh. "But you apparently already knew that, since you were there yourself."

Something in Sharon broke at Harrison's admission; she'd been trying so hard to deny to herself that her father was just a victim of circumstance, that he _was _better than the other politicians and a good man that wouldn't betray his country for anything. Her father's own admission destroyed her faith, and she found that she really was forced to face the truth. "Dad, how _could _you?" she whispered, taking a few steps back.

"I was desperate at the time I first contacted Hans. I still don't regret anything I asked him to do," Harrison said defensively.

"But did you have to tell him about _me_?" Sharon demanded. "Hydra isn't as stupid as you think! Someone down the line will eventually figure out that we're related and that I still work for S.H.I.E.L.D.! Hell, I'll be happy to still be employed by Monday!"

"Sharon, you need to stop overreacting! Hans was never the sharpest knife in the drawer to begin with, and I think you're overestimating average Hydra IQs in the ranks. By the time Hydra Command hears about you, they won't care about Hans' arrest or you anymore!" Harrison said abruptly. "Besides, Hans really wasn't himself two nights ago!"

"Which _should _tell you that it wasn't him!" Sharon countered. "Don't you know that an odd change in behavior usually indicates that it's an imposter?"

"_Really _now? I haven't seen him in years, how should I know it wasn't a change in behavior because of a change in circumstance? He _knows _that S.H.I.E.L.D. is hunting him down! That has got to be stressful enough by itself!" Harrison snapped. "Something could have happened to him between now and our last meeting before he went overseas."

"Oh, are you a psychologist on top of a politician? Is that your moonlight job when you aren't making deals with Hydra operatives?" Sharon demanded.

"That's not fair, and you know it," Harrison answered coldly.

"Then _why? _Or is that too hard to answer?" Sharon demanded.

"Sharon Anne Carter, you will drop this discussion _now. _ I will answer your question only when you have an open mind again, not some narrow funnel that Fury gave you!" Harrison snapped, startling Sharon into complete silence.

For a minute, neither person said anything. Then Sharon straightened her spine stiffly and said, "I've done all I can to keep you out of prison. For here on out, you're on your own." Then she turned and promptly left the kitchen.

"I beg your pardon?" When Sharon didn't immediately answer, Harrison repeated, "I beg your pardon, Sharon? Sharon?"

"You've got it," Sharon said over her shoulder before she started heading back up the stairs to the family room to rejoin Peggy and hopefully calm down. She couldn't believe that less than five minutes after destroying the camera, her father came out and abruptly admitted to what Fury had suspected and what Sharon had denied all along.

_Damn, I am such an idiot. _

She could only hope to find solace with Aunt Peggy.

* * *

><p><em>Bring! Bring!<em>

Fury caught the cell phone before it went to the third ring. "Hello, Fury here," he said as Captain America remained focused on the road back to the SHIELD air base.

"_Director? It's me, Teresa. I have news concerning the mission to Germany, the one following the anonymous tip to Hans Wyler." _

"Please tell me its good news. I already got a call from the security chief saying they lost the camera feed on Harrison Carter," Fury said calmly.

Teresa sighed. _"I wish I had good news. The team found Hans in a small house on the outskirts of Munich. Problem was that he was already dead, there were several bullets lodged in strategic places down his spinal cord, along with severe head trauma. The field medic estimated that he'd been dead for several days at that point. He lived alone, so no one even noticed him gone," _Teresa said, her voice breaking several times because of static.

Fury mulled over this information. While it was good because it was one less Hydra agent to deal with, it also begged the question of who else wanted him dead and why. Perhaps it wasn't even related to Harrison, Peggy and Dr. Faustus. "Teresa, did the operatives have a theory of who might have killed him and why?"

"_No sir, the team strip-searched the house, and there was nothing out of the ordinary except for the lack of Hydra paraphernalia. The team leader suspects that Hans tried to leave Hydra with fatal consequences."_

Tell the operatives out there now that I want definite evidence to support that theory. Until then, do not make assumptions about what or who could have killed him," Fury said as their car pulled into the S.H.I.E.L.D. air base driveway, which would lead straight to the parking garage. "I'll talk to you again when I get back to the helicarrier."

"_Yes, sir." _

Fury hung up and stared out the window across the tarmac. He had most, if not all, the pieces now.

It was time to start assembling the puzzle.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Thanks goes out to my lovely editor, Fyrepen33 for helping me with this. **


	9. Sunday

**IX**

**Sunday**

* * *

><p>If there was one thing about Nick Fury that <em>all <em>of his subordinates couldn't decide was a good or bad thing or not, it was that he was _fast _when it came to catching spies, liars, and anyone else who attempted to hide something from him.

In Sharon's case, it was a bad thing. She'd just returned to the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier and was walking to her quarters to dump her things when she immediately received a summons to Fury's office. Agent 27 had been the one to deliver the summons; he'd been standing outside her quarters when she arrived from the helicarrier hangar.

That was how she wound up sitting in a chair in front of Fury's desk in his office. It was late afternoon, and Sharon just knew that this meeting was only going to be the icing to an otherwise _perfect _day that started with her and Harrison giving each other the cold shoulder all morning. Leaving Peggy had been painful, especially now since Sharon was well aware of her father's illegal activities and didn't quite trust him anymore. Which now left her unsure of where to turn for help; her mother, while often absentminded, usually sided with Harrison when it came to fights like this. Fury was out of the question; she'd just been lying to him and Captain America for the last _week,_ and she had _no_idea what would happen when she came clean about Peggy and the week's worth of lies that had followed her.

"Well," Fury finally said, reclaiming her attention to the here and now. "_That_ was fun to read," he said, nodding at the documents that were now lying flat on the desk.

Sharon didn't know how to respond to that. She just nodded awkwardly.

Fury's eye glinted with amusement. "Aren't you going to ask me what the documents are?"

_Is he trying to mess with me now? _"No, sir. I thought it wasn't any of my business, so I didn't want to pry," she said quietly, unable to meet Fury's gaze.

"_Well, _I'll tell you anyway," Fury said, leaning back in his chair. "That," he pointed to the documents, "Was the final report from the field security supervisor explaining that the camera observing Harrison Carter was destroyed and the observation team was forced to close the mission after that. Also included in this report, is the name of the person who destroyed the camera." Leaning forward, he said, "What I want to know, Sharon Carter, is _why _did you do it?"

_Busted. _And just over twenty-four hours later too. That was fast.

"The mission was over, sir. There was no need to continue violating my family's privacy like that," Sharon said, nearly standing up in anger.

"The plan, as I am sure that _I_ outlined for you and Captain Rogers, was to keep filming Harrison Carter in case he implicated himself further," Fury said irritably. "That whole encounter with Hans on Thursday night? _I _set that up _on purpose _to force Carter's hand! I _wanted _him to panic into telling me where the freaking hell the spy in S.H.I.E.L.D. was… along with a few other things," he said, his eye narrowing at Sharon. "But, while we're on the topic of Hydra and your father, I promise you that there was nothing false in the briefing packet that I gave you for the mission."

Sharon stared at him, dumbstruck and unsure what to pick at in his speech first. "Y… You hired Hydra?" she finally managed to ask. "I thought you hated them," she said. Fury really was the last person she expected to do anything with Hydra.

"Carter, did it ever occur to you that just _maybe _I have Hydra uniforms that were either purchased, borrowed, or taken from Hydra soldiers and underground dealers over the years? How else do you think I run undercover operations like the one on Thursday night?" Fury asked patiently. "Sergeant Willis wanted a live-fire exercise, I wanted to question Harrison Carter, Sergeant Branson happened to have experience pretending to be a Hydra officer, so I went with what I had."

"Someone could have been killed!" Sharon exploded, jumping out of her seat. "Branson… if he was Hans, then Captain Rogers shot him in the frigging spine after I tried to strangle him!" She froze when she remembered 56's phone call from two days ago. "Oh God, they're –"

"Both doing fine," Fury finished. "Willis and Branson both knew exactly what they were getting themselves into when I outlined the mission to the two of them, and they both had the opportunity to refuse. Branson had to wing it when acting as Hans because we haven't seen the guy in years, no thanks to Mr. Carter."

That was when it finally clicked for Sharon, why Hans had looked so oddly familiar when she snuck up on him in the junkyard. "And Willis?" she finally asked.

"Ironically, he got jumped first, starting the whole fiasco; he'd wanted to stay out of harm's way. He tried to videotape the whole thing for evaluating the students later, but since Rogers destroyed the tape, we're going to try something else for them," Fury said, rolling his eye. "Bottom line, the only time anyone was in real danger was when you decided to use the weapons _you _brought. All the 'Hydra' soldiers had thick armor padding, because honestly, it was Captain Rogers I was the most worried about."

"Yeah, I didn't see him much during the battle itself because it was dark and we'd separated beforehand, but he definitely knew what he was doing," Sharon admitted, impressed despite the fact that her head was still reeling from what Fury told her. "You know, Dad said that 'Hans' was acting oddly."

"Well, we'll never have to fake him again, seeing that he's dead. The real Hans Lorentz that is. Someone else got to him before we did," Fury said grimly. "Which begs the question of who and why." Fury sighed before starting to collect the scattered documents on his desk. "But we're not going to deal with that now, because I'm not done with you yet," he said, looking back at her.

Sharon couldn't help it; the smirk bloomed on her face as the stress that had been bubbling all week finally came to a full boil. "Then why don't you just cut to the chase and tell me the real reason why you're still worked up over the fact that you no longer have camera access in Mr. Carter's life? You already have plenty of evidence to arrest him, and I bet you can easily cover up the fact that the real Hans was already dead when this exchange with Mr. Carter happened," she said. "So why are you really angry with me?"

Fury's expression changed into one she'd never seen before as he quietly stood up. His one visible eye narrowed as a cold frown settled over his features. It was suddenly easy to see why Hydra feared and hated him, Sharon had never felt so small before in her life. Fury placed both hands on his desk and leaned forward so that he was towering over her. "Peggy Carter. Is she alive?" he asked coldly.

"Yes." The answer slipped out and was gone before Sharon could register what just happened.

"Where is she?"

Sharon forced herself to rally before answering him; she may have been caught off guard before, but she was ready for the attack now. "I won't tell."

"Oh? And why not?"

"Because she's been through enough as it is, and if she does ever decide to come back, we'll do it on my terms. She and I will collaborate on how to do that. Her decision, my terms. Not yours, not Captain America's," she said, aware that her voice was shaking now. "If she wants to remain hidden, then that should be her decision, _not_ yours."

She half-expected the interrogation to continue. Fury however arched an eyebrow, seemed to consider her words and his personal thoughts, and then surprisingly backed off, not something she ever expected him to do. "Until I decide what to do with you, Agent Thirteen, you will be assisting Sergeants Willis and Branson with training the new recruits indefinitely," Fury said brusquely, sitting back down in his chair. "For reasons we just discussed, they are both currently indisposed to properly teach the recruits, and a delay in their training would only slow things down. That is something I cannot afford to happen right now."

"Yes, sir," she said quietly.

"Dismissed. And don't give me a reason to summon you back." Fury said curtly without looking up.

Not caring whether he saw it or not, Sharon saluted before standing up and leaving the room. She felt as though his one eye was boring into her back as she left, but there really was nothing she could do at this point. Her confession (and subsequently her secret) was out, and only time would tell if he would retaliate harsher than he already did. Fury was too unpredictable when angered.

It wasn't until she shut his office door with a resounding _click_ that she finally sank to her knees, the adrenaline draining out of her limbs and replacing itself with pure _fear_ as she could only imagine how Captain America would react to hearing this. Head hanging between her knees, she struggled to catch her breath again and focus on the here and now.

She'd finally screwed up. The whole mess had gotten way out of control, and now it was time to pay up.

_Well, nowhere to go from here except forward, right?_

With that thought in mind, she stood up again, and headed for Medical, hoping to talk to Sergeant Willis.

* * *

><p>Several hours passed before Fury's second visitor arrived.<p>

"You're late," Fury said without looking up as Captain America walked into the office, pulling his blue facemask off while shutting the door at the same time.

"I had to break up a fight between Iron Man and Ant-Man. It was a disagreement over the ethics of using superpowers, specifically of when to use them and with how much force," Rogers said, sitting down in the recently vacated chair across the desk from Fury.

"Get used to it, Iron Man likes to argue," Fury said, looking up at Rogers. "Especially over a tricky subject."

"Has the Hydra informant woken up yet?" Rogers asked.

"Yes. Unfortunately, we missed the cyanide capsule he'd hidden, and he committed suicide after telling the nurse on duty that he'd rather face death than his boss or us. So we don't have the link to Hydra or Mr. Carter anymore," Fury said, fudging the truth a little to fit the soon-to-be-publicized outcome.

Rogers sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose as he thought as though to ward off an oncoming headache. "And here I thought we were close to nailing Harrison Carter for treason," he said quietly. He paused, and then asked, "What of the camera that Agent Thirteen and I set up? Will that provide enough evidence for conviction?"

"Unfortunately, no. Mr. Carter evidently got into a spat with his wife about painting their house last night, and paint accidentally covered the camera. Mr. Carter unknowingly scraped the camera off when cleaning his hands. So we don't even have that," Fury said grimly, pulling an excuse out of thin air for the camera's destruction. It wasn't Rogers's business to know the real reason for the camera's destruction because it did not concern him.

"Now that _that_ is taken care of, I do have news concerning Peggy Carter," Fury said, leaning back comfortably in his chair. "More importantly, I have a _link_ to her."

Rogers looked up, his face masked with slight despair. "I thought we determined that she was dead," he said quietly.

"That's what I thought too. It just never occurred to me that Agent Thirteen could fib as well as her father," Fury said. "So not only is Agent Carter is alive, but Thirteen knows where she is."

"Then where is Agent Thirteen?" Rogers asked, starting to stand up.

Fury leaned over and gently tugged him back down, enough to give Rogers a hint. "Don't charge her down just yet, keep pretending that you don't know. There are a few things I need to sort out first before we make our next move. Pestering Thirteen will only tip her off to what I'm trying to do, and she'll clam up and do something rash right when we need her to talk and stay rational," he said, settling back down in his seat while Rogers straightened his sleeve.

"Very well, Fury. I trust your judgment in this," Rogers finally said after a few moments of silence. He glanced at Fury and asked, "Did you ever figure out the spy within S.H.I.E.L.D. ranks?"

"Yes, and the problem has been taken care of."

Both men fell into what should have been a peaceful silence, but Fury's mind was busy at work. From what he knew, Thirteen admitted that Peggy was under (most likely) family protection because she'd 'been through a lot', which would make sense if Peggy endured captivity under Faustus, according to S.H.I.E.L.D.'s files. Then there had been the conversation between Harrison Carter and 'Hans', as recorded by Harrison's camera. Branson had pretty much bluffed his way through the conversation, probing for information. The idiot unfortunately got derailed at the mention of a spy within S.H.I.E.L.D.'s ranks, but not before figuring out that Hans Lorentz, Peggy, and Harrison were all linked to each other through Dr. Faustus. If Fury had to _guess_, he'd say that Harrison paid Hans to get Peggy out of Faustus's control without S.H.I.E.L.D. noticing. In return, Harrison helped pay for Hans's escape from the United States, sadly obstructing justice in the hunt for a known criminal.

All Fury had to do now was get Harrison Carter's side (and confession) as well as Peggy's current location without tipping Harrison off. Then it was game over.

Well, at least all he had to do now was wait until lunch tomorrow.

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><p><strong>AN: One more chapter after this. :) I'm guessing maybe the week of August 13th, depends how fast I can type it up. Thanks to Fyrepen33 for assistance with this chapter.**


	10. Brooklyn

**X**

**Brooklyn**

* * *

><p>"You probably already know what I'm going to ask you."<p>

"To finish someone else's half-finished story? That's usually the only thing you ever ask me after we conclude business."

Fury chuckled as he nudged his knight and captured his opponent's rook. "You know me too well, Mr. Carter."

"Call it experience," Harrison Carter said, wrinkling his nose at the loss of his rook. Pushing his last pawn forward one spot, he leaned back in his chair and asked, "So whose story do you want finished?"

"Your daughter's."

Carter paused, frowning until he realized who it was Fury was asking about. He snorted. "Sharon? I'll be lucky if she talks to me again within the week, much less at all," he said resignedly.

"She's a good girl, there's no doubt about that. I just can't exactly trust her very much right now because she deliberately withheld information from me, and how do I know that's a habit of hers? Or worse yet, how do I know that this potential habit of misplaced loyalties won't flare up again and possibly result in the death of her fellow agents? I take very good care of the men and women who work for me, and if I can justify the death of one to protect hundreds, then so be it," Fury said as he moved his bishop and captured Carter's last pawn.

"Please don't punish her for something I instilled into her years before she ever _joined_ S.H.I.E.L.D.," Carter said, not bothering to hide the slight plea out of his voice. He inspected the chessboard on the café table between the two of them, clearly desperate for something to distract himself with. The two men were sitting at a nice little outdoor café, prolonging a long-overdue lunch meeting, which was one originally scheduled the past Thursday. Since they'd concluded the business portion – renewing contracts – the two were just killing time now.

Carter didn't know it, nor did he ever have to, but Fury was still working on last week's fiasco even while sitting in front of the chessboard.

Carter finally leaned back in his seat, having finally made his move. "Check," he said, glancing up at Fury.

"Oh, I'll be checking all right," Fury replied, but somehow they both knew he wasn't talking about the game. "In a way, I'm glad that last week happened. It gives me a chance to not only fix things up within the infrastructure, but search elsewhere for potential problem spots," Fury added, moving one of his pieces to defend his king.

"Don't thank me. I lost my only daughter because of it, and I still wish I could reverse time to tell her something less harsh, maybe a tamer version of what she wanted to know, just an attempt to patch things up between us," Carter said moodily, moving his next piece. "Check."

"You know, you could still tell her. Or better yet, tell me and I'll tell her," Fury suggested mildly as he took a risk to move his rook a little closer to the other side of the board. He just had to make sure Carter didn't see it.

Carter snorted. "Fury, sometimes being subtle is not your forte," he said, moving his piece again. "You're too smart for your own good, your standards are next to impossible for _anyone_ to achieve, but being subtle is not a strength of yours."

"On the contrary, what if I was so subtle that you completely missed it? And I could continue probing for information uninterrupted?" Fury replied, eliminating the nearest threat to his king.

"Nice try, but I've been at this game for almost my entire career. If I recall correctly, you haven't."

It was at points like these that Fury felt a little guilty for pulling the wool over Carter's eyes. Just a little though, not enough to make him actually stop. "Well, you got me. Sorry, but I don't have a witty comeback for that," he replied calmly before he relaxed in his seat again.

Carter shrugged before making his own move.

"But enough about me," Fury said abruptly, causing Carter to jump a little. "How is your sister doing?" he asked as his queen took Carter's bishop.

"Sister? Oh, Maggie. She's fine," Carter said without looking up from the board. Fury caught the little verbal slip but didn't betray anything. "What did Sharon say about her?" He glanced across the board and then added, "Check."

"Not much. Just that she was the family member you were trying to protect. What she didn't say was from _whom_ were you trying to protect your sister," Fury said mildly as he casually removed Carter's other bishop.

"Ah, it was from no one important," Carter said calmly.

"Dr. Faustus?"

Carter shrugged. "Maybe," he replied.

Fury silently contemplated his next move. His knight was in perfect position for a crippling blow to Carter's defenses.

Back in the helicarrier, he knew that Steve Rogers had begun the slow process of getting close to Sharon Carter, who, at this moment in time, would be assisting Sergeant Wilson with afternoon training classes. The recruits would be unbearably difficult, and Wilson most likely would rope in extra help once he saw it. Rogers, at this point, only wanted to make sure that Peggy was doing well, and to ease any lingering pains from the end of the war. Nothing more, the time for that was gone and unsalvageable. Sharon was going to be a difficult customer, no doubt about it, so Steve was going to have to tread carefully so that she didn't throw up her defenses around him like she constantly did with Captain America. It would definitely take time, there was no denying that, but Fury was going to let Steve do things his way this time.

"Well, lucky for you, Faustus is no longer a variable in this investigation. Neither is Hans, he committed suicide just yesterday to avoid interrogation from us and retribution from his boss," Fury casually remarked, his knight _finally_ capturing Carter's queen. "Check."

Carter's strongest player was now out of the game. All Fury had to do now was keep Sharon Carter in line.

"Yes, I believed it was Hans that prompted the argument that drove Sharon away, she was afraid of Hydra catching up to her. Shame to see that it was all for nothing," Carter said bitterly, moving a knight to protect his king, leaving his left flank exposed.

"Well, how was I supposed to know that Hans was going to meet up with you? Maybe I should have been monitoring you instead of him," Fury replied as his knight moved into position.

In her office, Fury knew, Teresa was double-checking Virginia state records and cross-referencing them with birth certificates from all over the United States, to check if a 'Maggie Carter' even existed. If Carter truly had a sister named Maggie, which he didn't according to the Virginia state census records, then Maggie would show up as a legitimate individual and Fury would back off. One buzz to Fury's phone would indicate _yes_, Maggie Carter _did_ in fact exist and Fury would have to pursue his leads on Peggy elsewhere. Two buzzes would indicate _no_, Maggie did not exist so that had to mean that the fourth person living in the Carter household (again, courtesy of state census records), had to be Peggy.

"If you had in fact monitored me, I would have sued you for invasion of privacy. That and I promise you that I am not a very interesting person to begin with," Carter said, rolling his eyes.

_Trust me, my security teams agree whole-heartedly with you. You bored them all to death until late Thursday night._

"That's too bad. Where's Maggie living now?" Fury asked as Carter moved his rook forward in an attempt to delay the inevitable.

_Buzz, buzz._

"At home, with my wife and me," Carter replied, looking up at Fury.

"Thank you," Fury said. He leaned forward, captured the rook, and then calmly said, "Checkmate."

While Carter's eyes widened and began to search the board to confirm the news of his loss, Fury stood up and gathered his coat. "Well, I have to get back to work now. Good day, and thank you for the nice chat, Mr. Carter," he said grimly.

Then he left without another word.

Game over.

-Finis-

* * *

><p><strong>AN: THANK YOU to everyone read/alerted/favorited/reviewed this, and I hope you enjoyed reading this fic as much as I did writing it. There will not be a sequel, however I do have another story with Rogers and Carter planned, and I promise Rogers will have a bigger role in that one than he did here. Captain America and all related media belong to Marvel Comics.**


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